This book is for those who have tinkered a bit with Arduino or Raspberry Pi, and want to get more hands-on with hardware, or for those new to electronics and you just want to dive in.
You don't need an electronics engineering degree or even any programming experience to get the most out of Beginning FPGA: Programming Metal. Just bring your curiosity and your Field-Programmable Gate Array. In this book, you'll be using the BeMicro MAX10, a very affordable and breadboard-friendly FPGA development board to create a light sensor, an temperature sensor, a motion sensor, and just for fun, the KITT car display from Knight Rider.
Along the way, you'll learn the theory behind FPGAs and electronics, including the math and logic you need to understand what's happening - all explained in a fun, friendly, and accessible way. It also doesn't hurt that you'll be learning VHDL, a hardware description languae that is also an extremely marketable skill.
Aiken Pang was born in Hong Kong in the early 80's just in time for the home micro-computer revolution. He developed an interest in computers after finding an Apple IIe at his uncle's home, installing a TV card, floppy drive and loaded his first game (Pacman) by himself at the age of 10. Since then he has self taught himself a number of programming languages and built his own computers from scratch.
Aiken followed his passion for computing into more formal studies and holds a BEng in Electronics Engineering and an MSc in Computer Engineering from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell respectively. He has been using VHDL to design hardware in FPGAs for over 10 years.
He lives in the USA with his wife France and their daughter Mayah.
