Hardware.

In electronics, a hardware description language or HDL is any language from a class of computer languages and/or programming languages for formal description of electronic circuits, and more specifically, digital logic. It can describe the circuit's operation, its design and organization, and tests to verify its operation by means of simulation.
HDLs are standard text-based expressions of the spatial and temporal structure and behaviour of electronic systems. Like concurrent programming languages, HDL syntax and semantics includes explicit notations for expressing concurrency. However, in contrast to most software programming languages, HDLs also include an explicit notion of time, which is a primary attribute of hardware. Languages whose only characteristic is to express circuit connectivity between a hierarchy of blocks are properly classified as netlist languages used on electric computer-aided design (CAD).
HDLs are used to write executable specifications of some piece of hardware. A simulation program, designed to implement the underlying semantics of the language statements, coupled with simulating the progress of time, provides the hardware designer with the ability to model a piece of hardware before it is created physically. It is this executability that gives HDLs the illusion of being programming languages. Simulators capable of supporting discrete-event (digital) and continuous-time (analog) modeling exist, and HDLs targeted for each are available.
It is certainly possible to represent hardware semantics using traditional programming languages such as C++, although to function such programs must be augmented with extensive and unwieldy class libraries. Primarily, however, software programming languages do not include any capability for explicitly expressing time, and this is why they do not function as a hardware description language. Before the recent introduction of SystemVerilog, C++ integration with a logic simulator was one of the few ways to use OOP in hardware verification. SystemVerilog is the first major HDL to offer object orientation and garbage collection.
Using the proper subset of virtually any (hardware description or software programming) language, a software program called a synthesizer (or synthesis tool) can infer hardware logic operations from the language statements and produce an equivalent netlist of generic hardware primitives to implement the specified behaviour. Synthesizers generally ignore the expression of any timing constructs in the text. Digital logic synthesizers, for example, generally use clock edges as the way to time the circuit, ignoring any timing constructs. The ability to have a synthesizable subset of the language does not itself make a hardware description language.

Design using HDL.
Efficiency gains realized using HDL means a majority of modern digital circuit design revolves around it. Most designs begin as a set of requirements or a high-level architectural diagram. Control and decision structures are often prototyped in flowchart applications, or entered in a state-diagram editor. The process of writing the HDL description is highly dependent on the nature of the circuit and the designer's preference for coding style . The HDL is merely the 'capture language'—often begin with a high-level algorithmic description such as MATLAB or a C++ mathematical model. Designers often use scripting languages (such as Perl) to automatically generate repetitive circuit structures in the HDL language. Special text editors offer features for automatic indentation, syntax-dependent coloration, and macro-based expansion of entity/architecture/signal declaration.
The HDL code then undergoes a code review, or auditing. In preparation for synthesis, the HDL description is subject to an array of automated checkers. The checkers report deviations from standardized code guidelines, identify potential ambiguous code constructs before they can cause misinterpretation, and check for common logical coding errors, such as dangling ports or shorted outputs. This process aids in resolving errors before the code is synthesized.
In industry parlance, HDL design generally ends at the synthesis stage. Once the synthesis tool has mapped the HDL description into a gate netlist, this netlist is passed off to the back-end stage. Depending on the physical technology (FPGA, ASIC gate array, ASIC standard cell), HDLs may or may not play a significant role in the back-end flow. In general, as the design flow progresses toward a physically realizable form, the design database becomes progressively more laden with technology-specific information, which cannot be stored in a generic HDL description. Finally, an integrated circuit is manufactured or programmed for use