A discussion of the problems with current VHDL implementations

It is noted that many factors have conspired to keep VHDL´s promise unfulfilled. The authors discuss those factors and give as an example their experience with one vendor´s implementation of the standard. Implementation problems, documentation requirements, and hardware synthesis are addressed. The authors are currently using the Workview Design Environment, version 4.0, to develop a behavioral model of the Intel 8086 microprocessor. Enhancements to the basic 8086 architecture will also be modeled