The Philosophical Analysis Of Hardware Description Language

Hardware Description Language (HDL) is one of the most important parts of the EDA (Electronic Design Automation) technology. By taking advantage of this language, designers of digital circuit system are able to describe their ideas from the up to down (or, from the abstract to the concreteness), and make use of a series of layer- by -layer modules to indicate an extremely complicated digital system. It possesses a dual nature of language and technology. Therefore, by conducting study into it, we could not only deepen our knowledge of artificial language, enrich and expand the content of linguistics, but also realize its technical nature from the height of philosophy, make a logical interpretation and prediction for the current situation and development of HDL, and provide valuable references and suggestions for circuit designers.Though there are a great many articles of current study on natural and artificial languages at home and abroad, the majority of which are about linguistics and computer sciences, and is barely related to electronic circuit. So it is pretty novel of the author to try to make an analysis on the newly-developed artificial language in electronics—HDL, in philosophical aspect. I hope that it would somewhat be enlightening to you.Based on the above considerations, my thesis is developed in three chapters, and each one respectively discusses the theoretical origin, ideological characteristics, and philosophical significance of HDL, the concrete content are as following:ⅠThe theoretical origins of Hardware Description Language:this chapter introduces the basis of its emergence and development, which help us make a clear understanding, i.e., As an artificial language, HDL is just the production of natural language that develops into a certain phase, so it is not replacement but rather complement.ⅡThe ideological characteristics of Hardware Description Language: this chapter analyzes HDL respectively from linguistic form and grammar, semantics and pragmatics, stressing on its differences with those of natural language, and hence illustrate how it complements natural language.ⅢThe philosophical significance of Hardware Description Language: this chapter is also the emphasis of the thesis, mainly dissects from ontology,epistemology and methodology in varied degrees, and points out that HDL possesses the nature of both language and technology, which is of high research value. The terminative part also makes a proper analysis on the predicaments it might face and its development in the future, and also provide the corresponding suggestions and recommendations.