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1. Great for starting with FPGAs
   Detailed just enough without being too long. Concise and well written with great examples.lot actually build and implement. I highly recommend purchasing one of the developed boards the author points to in the book. Great learning experience!

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2. Excellent way to get started with FPGA technology
   Russell’s book here, GoBoards, and similar iCE40 based development boards are a great way to get started on FPGAs. Also be aware that as of early May 2024, Lattice has reversed their recent decision to begin charging for the iCEcube2 development tool. They realized that this was a mistake and it is now free again to all. I heartily applaud this decision by Lattice. It will be worth way more to them in the long run. Russell has helped many get started in this technology through his YouTube channel. This along with Lattice’s cooperation in this case is a great service to the iCE40 development community in particular and to FPGA based development in general. I look forward to further expansion of this market, especially to the improvement of the software tools provided by all the vendors in the FPGA space.This technology has always had a big impact on the development of quite sophisticated electronic products of many types since it was invented back in the early 80s. But often the accessibility to it has also been sequestered in the labs of larger companies with just a few practitioners with the experience and willingness to brave the complicated software tools and development platforms required to build reliable high speed performance from this type of device. Along with the device vendors of course, many thanks are due to engineers like Russell for helping to put this tech in the hands of more HDL programmers on a grass roots level. It still has great potential for the future. This is book is just the tip of the “iCEberg” (pun intended). Don’t be afraid to take a look at some of the other advanced devices available today that contain many millions of programmable logic cells to get an idea of where this is all going.

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3. An incredible resource for both beginners and professionals needing a refresh
   I have a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering and took a class on FPGA programming in college, and I did a little bit of FPGA work early on in my professional career, but haven’t touched them in about a decade. In the intervening years I’ve become an avid hobby electronics tinkerer doing home projects with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, etc. It wasn’t long ago that I found myself wanting to play around with FPGAs again, and I pretty quickly stumbled upon the Nandland YouTube channel and the accompanying blog. I was thrilled to learn that Russell Merrick, Nandland’s creator, was writing a book, so I happily preordered it.As soon as it arrived, I dived right in and have been very pleased. Mr. Merrick has taken a really complex subject and made it extremely accessible for beginners, but without making it so simple that people like me lose interest. He has a great writing style that is approachable, with easy to follow practical examples and tons of wisdom gained from years of experience doing this work and sharing his passion with others. I think the best thing about this book is that it’s not just a collection of coding exercises with little to no context; instead, the focus is on building a solid foundational understanding of FPGAs, how they work, and what they are (and are not) good for. And he has done all that extremely well.I highly recommend this book, whether you’re a hobbyist looking to expand your horizons, a student looking to get an edge or go deeper than a surface-level course will take you, or someone like me – a rusty practitioner looking for a refresher.

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4. Excellent and gentle introduction to programming FPGAs
   This book and a modest investment ($50 – $85) for an FPGA board will get you started in programming FPGAs. I have quite a few beginner-to-intermediate FPGA books, and I find this book to be the best, most gentle and complete introduction to their world. All the included examples are shown in *both* Verilog and VHDL, all recommended tools are free, and the author’s FPGA board is very inexpensive. This is an excellent hands-on way to get going with FPGAs! Only the most rudimentary issues are covered, which will serve you well. These are fundamental capabilities, upon which many, many projects can be built. I feel that most anyone can get started using this book, even if you’ve never programmed a single thing in your life! If you can work an Excel spreadsheet, you should be able to follow along with this book and gain the experience in working with FPGAs. Very highly recommended for total FPGA beginners!

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5. Great introduction to FPGAs, Verilog, and VHDL
   I am a current Ph.D. student at a top 5 Computer Science graduate program in the US. This is the first review I have ever written for any product on any site. I needed to learn FPGAs and Verilog quickly for a research project, and had no prior experience in either. I have just completed this book, and found it to be extremely helpful. It is a great introduction to the language of the industry, relevant FPGA constructs, and Verilog (cannot comment on VHDL as I did not complete that portion of the book). I do not anticipate this book to allow me to complete my project, rather I anticipate it to provide a solid foundation and enable me to learn the manufacturer and device specific information that I need. Big thank you to the author for putting this together.

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6. This book is very well written
   The book is well written and is a good guide to learning about FPGAs. The problem I ran into was that I couldn’t get the required software license to download the Lattice tools to use with the book. I had an old account but the password didn’t work. When I tried to reset the password, that didn’t work, numerous emails to Lattice ultimately didn’t get a password reset, so I just returned the book and am looking elsewhere for a basic FPGA course. The author has a website on which I discovered that in the recent past others had trouble getting license files as well. It’s unfortunate because the book is simple and straightforward.

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7. Ich kann die positiven Bewertungen überhaupt nicht nachvollziehen. Es ist inhaltlich identisch mit den YouTube-Videos des Authoren, man lernt also nichts Neues dazu.Sei es drum, Bücher sind als Referenzwerke oft besser zu gebrauchen. Wesentlich schlimmer wiegt, dass man schlicht nichts lernt. 100 Days of Code mit Angela Yu zeigt sehr beeindruckend, wie man Entwicklung didaktisch wertvoll vermitteln kann. Russell Merrick klatscht einfach Code hin und erklärt das große Ganze anstatt einzelne Komponenten. Man hat auch keine Möglichkeiten für das Selbststudium. Konzepte werden nicht nach und nach eingeführt mit Aufgaben, die in Eigenregie gelöst werden können, sondern nur als fertige Projekte. Es wird auch viel Vorwissen über Elektrotechnik vorausgesetzt, obwohl das Buch sich angeblich auch an Software-Entwickler richte, die tiefer einsteigen wollten. HDL sitzen noch einmal eine Ebene tiefer als Assembler und C, ich hätte mir mehr Ausführungen gewünscht.Das Geld kann man sich sparen und auf YouTube gehen. Schade.

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8. Thanks to the author and the generosity of the software manufacturer, the free licence is now available.

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