Designing digital circuits used to be a long and costly endeavor that only big companies could pursue. FPGAs make the process much easier, and now they’re affordable enough even for hobbyists. If you’re familiar with electricity and basic electrical components, this book starts simply and progresses through increasingly complex projects.
Justin Rajewski first got started with FPGAs over a summer internship with Northrop Grumman before his senior year of high school. Before this, a SparkFun blog post had piqued his interested in FPGAs, but he was frustrated with the lack of information available for beginners. After a few summers working with FPGAs as an intern, and some formal classes at Stanford University, Justin created the Mojo, an FPGA development board targeted specifically for beginners. He then launched a hugely successful Kickstarter for the Mojo. Justin continued to work on the Mojo and has even gone so far as to create an IDE with a new beginner-friendly language, Lucid.