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Course contents

  • How to Use This Course
  • Reading Paths
  • Quick Start: Your First Green Build
  • Part 1: How Chips Get Made6
  • Part 2: Your Workstation5
  • Part 3: Specify and Architect3
  • Part 4: The Design Loop6
  • Part 5: The Verification Ladder6
  • Part 6: Automation and Reproducibility5
  • Part 7: Hand-Off to the Back-End3
  • Part 8: When Things Go Wrong3
    • Troubleshooting Table
    • Debug Habits
    • Beginner Mistakes Checklist
  • Part 9: Project and Next Steps3
  • Reference4
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‹Start Here: RTL and Verification
  1. Topics
  2. Start Here: RTL and Verification
  3. Part 8: When Things Go Wrong

Part 8 · When Things Go Wrong · All levels

Part 8: When Things Go Wrong

What do I do when nothing works? Match a symptom to its likely cause using the troubleshooting table.

  • 3topics
  • 3lessons
On this page

    Part 8 answers: What do I do when nothing works?

    Every beginner meets the same failures: a cryptic tool message, a test that fails for no clear reason, a build that passes on one machine and fails on another. This part collects eight real failures into one troubleshooting table so a symptom points to its likely cause.

    It then teaches three habits that get you unstuck: reproduce with the smallest case, read the first error, and bisect with Git.

    After this part you can

    • Match a symptom to its likely cause using the troubleshooting table.

    • Shrink a failing case to the smallest reproduction before changing code.

    • Check a repository against the beginner mistakes checklist before asking for help.

    Lessons

    #

    Lesson

    Level

    Status

    8.1

    Troubleshooting Table

    F · Foundation

    ready

    8.2

    Debug Habits

    F · Foundation

    ready

    8.3

    Beginner Mistakes Checklist

    F · Foundation

    ready

    Every lesson in this part is ready. Work through them in order: each one sets up the problem the next one solves.

    Where other courses go deeper

    This course stays on the front-end start-up path and links out instead of repeating. These lessons build on or continue what this part teaches.

    • Hardware Debug: The Debug Loop

    • Hardware Debug: Reading a Waveform with a Question

    Related topics

    • Course hub

    • Previous: Part 7 · Hand-Off to the Back-End

    • Next: Part 9 · Project and Next Steps

    PreviousNext: Troubleshooting Table

    Up next

    Up nextTroubleshooting Table

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    See also

    • How to Use This Course
    • Reading Paths
    • Quick Start: Your First Green Build