Acknowledgments I thank my daughter, Rebecca C. Smith, who is always so patient, loving, supportive, and understanding with me. She is my true source of motivation. I also thank my mother, Rebecca B. Smith, sisters Julie P. Webb and Sharon C. Smith, and my brother Maurice R. Smith for all their support and encouragement during this project. I am truly an engineer and not a writer. Without the support of my daughter and family, this book journey would have been almost impossible. Many thanks for the technical support I received from Mike Hines, Livia Castrucci, Christopher Loberg, Lawrence Wilson at Tektronix, Scott Silver at The Moving Pixel Company, and Brian Jacobsen at Synopsys for getting me a temporary license. Thanks to Xilinx, Altera, and ModelSim for letting me use their material. I dedicate this book to my dad, who was my hero and number 1 supporter. He is one of "heaven's angels." 1 I love and miss him very much.