- John F. Wakerly, Digital Design Principles & Practices (5th ed.). Excellent across logic families, MSI chips, and VHDL. The standard reference.
- R. P. Jain, Modern Digital Electronics. Comprehensive, India-popular text covering families and memory in depth.
- J. Bhasker, VHDL Primer and A Verilog HDL Primer. Concise. Either depending on language preference.
- Stephen Brown and Zvonko Vranesic, Fundamentals of Digital Logic with VHDL Design. Logic and VHDL tightly integrated.
- Pong P. Chu, FPGA Prototyping by VHDL Examples (or by Verilog Examples). Modern, hands-on, example-driven. Best follow-up to this chapter.
- Charles Petzold, Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware. Easier reading; ties logic gates to a working CPU.
- Bruce Schneier, Applied Cryptography (Chapter 17 on hardware). For the security tie-ins.
- Mark Tehranipoor, Hardware Security: A Hands-on Learning Approach. Modern textbook covering side channels, fault injection, and trojans.
Next chapter: VLSI Design. We zoom in on what happens inside the standard cells the synthesis tool just placed. Layout, design rules, the photomask, the foundry. The full path from your Verilog to atoms in silicon.