In the design of digital circuits, two hardware description languages are used: Verilog and VHDL. These languages can be used for digital circuit simulation, synthesis, and verification as well as to describe the behaviour of electronic systems. In order to help you choose which one to utilise for your upcoming digital circuit design project or to learn, the differences between Verilog and VHDL will be explained in this article.
Verilog:
Verilog is a hardware description language that was first introduced in 1984. It is widely used in the design of digital circuits, especially in the United States. Verilog is an event-driven language, which means that it describes the behavior of a circuit in terms of events and their effects. Verilog is also a procedural language, which means that it describes the behavior of a circuit in terms of a sequence of instructions.
One of the biggest advantages of Verilog is its simplicity. Verilog code is easy to read and understand, even for beginners. Verilog is also very flexible and can be used to describe both combinational and sequential circuits. Verilog is widely used in the industry and is supported by most hardware design tools.
VHDL:
VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) is a hardware description language that was introduced in 1981. It was initially developed by the United States Department of Defense for use in the design of digital circuits. VHDL is a concurrent language, which means that it describes the behavior of a circuit in terms of concurrent processes. VHDL is also a strongly typed language, which means that it requires the type of every signal and variable to be explicitly defined.
One of the biggest advantages of VHDL is its strong typing system. VHDL code is less prone to errors than Verilog code, especially in large projects. VHDL also has a more expressive syntax than Verilog, which allows for more complex designs to be described. VHDL is widely used in Europe and is supported by most hardware design tools.
