Zustandsautomaten können sehr elegant in VHDL beschrieben werden.

Hier ein Automat, der die Sequenz “101” erkennt und dann am Ausgang eine “1” ausgibt. Ein Moore Automat entsteht, wenn die Ausgangssignale nur vom State und nicht vom Eingangssignal abhängen.

library ieee;
use ieee.std_logic_1164.all;
 
entity automat is 
  port (
    clk_i:            in std_ulogic;
    reset_ni:         in std_ulogic;
    in_i:             in std_ulogic;  
    out_o:            out std_ulogic 
  );
end; 
 
architecture rtl of edge is  
  type state_type is (start_s, erste_eins_s, null_in_der_mitte_s, fertig_s);
  signal current_state, next_state : state_type;
begin
 
  next_state_and_output_p : process(current_state, in_i)
  begin
    out_o <= '0';
    next_state <= current_state; 
    case current_state is
      when start_s =>
        if in_i = '1' then
          next_state <= erste_eins_s;
        end if;
      when erste_eins_s  =>
        if in_i = '0' then
          next_state <= null_in_der_mitte_s;
        else
          next_state <= erste_eins_s; 
        end if; 
      when null_in_der_mitte_s  =>
        if in_i = '1' then
          next_state <= fertig_s; 
        else
          next_state <= start_s;
        end if;
      when fertig_s => 
        out_o <= '1';
        if in_i = '1' then 
          next_state <= erste_eins_s;
        else
          next_state <= start_s;
        end if; 
    end case; 
  end process next_state_and_output_p;  
 
  -- The sequential process for flipflop instantiation
  -- All signal assignments in this process will result in flipflops.
  state_reg_p : process (clk_i, reset_ni)
  begin
    if reset_ni = '0' then
      current_state <= start_s;
    elsif rising_edge(clk_i) then
      current_state <= next_state; 
    end if; 
  end process state_reg_p;    
 
end architecture;