What is used to design the configuration of a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)?
Why An FPGA is a chip full of uncommitted logic blocks and routing that you configure into whatever circuit you want. Designers describe the desired logic behavior in a hardware description language such as VHDL or Verilog, and synthesis tools compile that description into the bitstream that configures the gates and interconnects. HDL is text that describes parallel hardware structure and timing, not a sequence of instructions for a processor.
Watch out Machine and assembly language is tempting because it is also low-level code, but that programs a CPU's instruction execution, not the physical logic fabric of an FPGA. Karnaugh maps are a manual technique for simplifying small Boolean expressions, and an auto-router places traces on a printed circuit board.
FPGA = HDL. Think VHDL/Verilog: you describe the hardware, you don't write instructions for it.