Since the publication of the first IEEE standard in 1987 several revised versions have appeared. The first, in 1993, had the most extensive changes. VHDL 2000 Edition introduced protected types and VHDL-2002 contains mainly minor changes. VHDL-2008 is the name of the new version of VHDL. As with the earlier revisions, this doesn’t radically alter the language, but it does provide a wider set of modifications than previously.

The standard is now available from the IEEE and is known as IEEE Std. 1076-2008.

As support for some of these changes has started to appear in some simulators, Doulos CTO John Aynsley has been reviewing some of the most useful and practical features:

The changes to VHDL that are proposed in VHDL-2008 fall broadly into these categories:

You will find further information about the standardization of VHDL-2008 using these links:

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