Interactive Training Tools for Basic Introduction to VHDL Models

The paper outlines the increasing popularity of Hardware Description Languages (HDL), the advantages of VHDL and the reasons it gained an important position in engineering education. Special attention is paid to some difficulties that students meet when VHDL is first introduced to them. The good practices and recommendations are considered and an approach to help the students to overcome these difficulties is discussed. It consists in development of interactive training tools that in a visual manner will help the students to comprehend the connection “VHDL statement” – “hardware structure and behaviour”. The author believes this approach will address better the present students that tend to react better to visual information instead of textual one.