Cost Optimization

A component of the project and your final project grade will be cost optimization. The provided cost calculation script will count the components in your design and, using area estimates for each component, will give the total estimated area required by the design.

The following was calculated from the TA solution. The verilog design is mostly NOT optimized for area and uses the default Area Optimization synthesis strategy with no other map/par options beyond the defaults. The CPU runs at 78MHz, Framebuffer 100MHz, Video 50MHz.

Checkpoints 1 - 3 (i.e. does not include line engine):
Total Cost : 11.246482 mm^2
Total Cost (without BRAMs) : 3.696981 mm^2


Checpoints 1 - 4 (Line engine, not triangle engine)
Total Cost : 12.415560 mm^2
Total Cost (without BRAMs) : 4.488584 mm^2

This will provide a baseline. Designs at this cost will earn a grade of B for the optimization component of the project.

We will look most closely at "Total Cost" metric when evaluating the cost optimality of your design.