Ask Slashdot: Sources For Firmware and Hardware Books? 88
First time accepted submitter cos(0) writes "Between O'Reilly, Wrox, Addison-Wesley, The Pragmatic Bookshelf, and many others, software developers have a wide variety of literature about languages, patterns, practices, and tools. Many publishers even offer subscriptions to online reading of the whole collection, exposing you to things you didn't even know you don't know — and many of us learn more from these publishers than from a Comp Sci curriculum. But what about publishers and books specializing in tech underneath software — like VHDL, Verilog, design tools, and wire protocols? In particular, best practices, modeling techniques, and other skills that separate a novice from an expert?"
Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am an embedded software engineer who does some hardware/electrical engineering too. Unfortunately there is very little material on this subject specifically. Basically you need to learn how to code in C (not C++ or C#, raw C), learn some electronics and then maybe learn VHDL/Verilog as well. You then put it all together in your own mind.
It is really hard to recruit people with those skills so they are worth having. You will need some hands on experience though. You can simulate wire protocols and some hardware but none of the simulations are particularly good practice for real life, and employers will want examples of work anyway. A university level course would be best.