general

This book is a collection of scattered examples and subsequent examples don't build off of the previous ones as much as they could.

The first few chapters are worthless. The first "review" chapter goes through combinational logic too quickly and could have been ommitted completely. The introductory chapter on sequential logic is also of no use; the only concepts I was able to follow were the ones I already knew.

The book is really repetetive. It was almost like entire paragraphs were copied verbatim. A single proofreading could have weeded this stuff out. Other forms of repetition seemed to be caused by the fact that similarities between related concepts weren't identified and factored out.

There's also a huge section about Xilinx's and Altera's FPGA products that reads like a mix between a datasheet and a press release.

To top things off, the typesetting is horrible. Each example has an unnecessarily large begin/end banner that makes it hard to see the actual structure. The text in the code samples sometimes overlaps onto itself. I wouldn't have cared so much about problems like these if the book's content were any good.

In the end, I got the impression that the book was hastily put together. Definitely a waste of money.

If you want to go from designing basic building blocks to the next level: this is one of the few books out there that can do that for you. The author builds up speed quickly, but he provides complete examples(not code fragments) with simulation waveforms. Most of the code is available on his web site.

The 1st chapter is a good review of digital design(usually one half of a basic design book).His examples are excellent case studies,including architectures for arithmetic processors. There is a chapter on memories,on the structure of the different FPGAs and chapters on all stages(eg test and synthesis) of FPGA/ASIC.The author is an excellent teacher as this book shows.

(If you are struggling beginner-type student try the modeling,synthesis and rapid prototyping book first.)

Advanced digital design is an excellent book.
I recommend it for both experienced engineers and students!

I am using this book for my graduate level classes on "Digital System Design Automation (From HDL to FPGA)". The book is very useful - It has, from one hand a very reasonable methodology behind. From the other hand it is an excellent collection of design examples. Especially important is the fact that the book is bundled with Xilinx ISE Student edition tools. The book is fully supported by presentation slides available from the author.