Need help with finding resources on the net for my VHDL mini project?

Question

In my digital logic class, I am supposed to find documentation on the net about a math function; integration, that can be coded in VHDL and tested. I don't seem to find anything about this function? Can you please help me.

Answer 1

Integration is one of the two major operations of calculus (the other being the inverse, differentiation. There are indefinite and definite types of integration. When the integral of a function is expressed symbolically (as another function), this is the indefinite integral (e.g., the ind. int. of y=2x is y=x^2 + a constant). When the integral is numerically evaluated over some range of x, this is the definite integral. Much of time-domain simulation consists of successive evaluation and accumulation of the definite integral of some function, or "time stepping". Typically, each time step starts with evaluation of the 2nd derivative of something, let's say position (whose 2nd deriv. is acceleration), accumulation of the 1st deriv. (velocity) as the previous value + time-step size * 2nd deriv., then accumulation of the 0th deriv. (position) as the previous value + time-step size * 1st deriv. Of course it's a bit more complex than that, and many integration formulas exist to minimize errors.
An "integration" function could be something like what I've described for time-stepping, or it could be a much more sophsticated function that accepts a function definition and gives you the indefinite integral in symbolic form. So you need more information about what kind of integration function is desired.