Teaching freshmen VHDL-based digital design

Industry demand for highly-skilled digital VLSI and embedded systems engineers has made the teaching of design a challenging task for undergraduate educators. Increasingly challenging electronic design automation (EDA) environments call for a variety of skills in engineering graduates which necessitate not only industrial skills but also fundementals in basic science and digital design. These urgent needs are addressed by creating a digital logic design course taught at the freshman level that introduces students to VHDL design of digital VLSI systems while including core concepts. Critical thinking, logic synthesis and circuit innovation take priority over conventional analysis techniques. This case study includes example design projects that have been successfully implemented at The University of Akron.