1. Hardware description language :
It describes hardware in textual form. It describes hardware behavior and their structure. It is description of circuits that can be created at different levels of description according to language syntax and semantics or at level of abstraction from basic logic gates. It is stimulation of designs before fabrication. It’s syntax and semantics include explicit notations for expressing concurrency.
It is having two standard hardware description language :
- Verilog (C-like concise syntax)
-
VHDL (ADA-like verbose syntax)
2. Software language :
It is a programming language that allow a software designer to executable software applications that will operate on a suitable processor. It writes a set of instructions to allow CPU to perform a specific tasks. It helps to develop various applications.
The target processor will be one of three types : microprocessor(mP), microcontroller(mC), or digital signal processor(DSP). It is not only programming language, it includes query languages, transformation languages, software interfaces, database schemata, domain-specific languages, markup languages.
Difference between Hardware Description Language and Software Language :
| S. No. | Hardware Description Language |
Software Language |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | HDL defines the structure and behavior of electronic circuits and mostly, digital logic circuits. |
Software language writes a set of instructions to allow a CPU to perform a particular task. |
| 2. | It defines the behavior of digital circuits. | It helps to develop a variety of applications. |
| 3. | It is more complex to work with. | It is not as complex to work with. |
| 4. | This design is based on the creation and use of textual-based descriptions of circuits. | This is used to create executable software applications that will operate on a suitable processor. |
| 5. | It is a language which is having syntactic and semantic support for supporting the temporal behavior and spatial structure of hardware. | It is a language that can translate machine instructions and execute them on a computer. |
| 6. | There is no such facility for language selection in HDL. | Depending on the application, a programmer can choose a language. You have a lot of options when it comes to software languages. |
| 7. | The career prospects with HDL- Hardware Engineer, Electronic Hardware Engineer, or Embedded Engineer and other positions. | Working as a web developer, web designer, data science specialist, QA manager, and other positions are all possible with software languages. |
| 8. | Examples : Verilog and VHDL. | Examples: Java, C, C++, etc. |