Last Week

Today I ran some more syntheses on the merged modules. I have almost a complete set of data now, which is good because when I met with Professor Eli today, she told me that she'd like to see some graphs when we meet on Wednesday. I talked to Love for a little bit about some of the issues that I had when running my tests. He suggested that I start using a bigger board when I do the syntheses, especially when it comes to the bigger bit-width modules. I think I'll do that after I get the new computer all set up.

Today I finished up all the multiplier and adder modules' data up to 32-bit. I had plans to finish the 64-bit data as well, but the current board that I'm using limits the number of constraints that I can give it. I talked to Love about it earlier today and he suggested that I move onto a bigger board. I also asked Love what I should do next, whether he wants me to continue with the bigger boards or to start on the wrappers. At this point, it sounds like he wants me to start doing the wrappers. I will talk to Professor Eli tomorrow and ask her about the new computer. With it, my work will move much faster. I saw Love's computer in action today. It runs so quickly :-).

Lastly, I will post my compiled data on multipliers and adders shortly after I finish this entry. It's not a report but it has the necessary information. It will be found in the Downloads page under Data Collections. I will eventually post the pdf versions of the separate sheets.

This morning, I met with Professor Eli and we talked about the multiplier-adder trends. She told me to modify my graphs slightly, write a report and hand it to her by the end of the day. So, for the rest of the day, I worked on the report emailed Love and her the final draft around 8 pm. She emailed me back saying that if I don't meet with her tomorrow (which is likely), then I should go talk to Love. Thus, I will talk to Love tomorrow. Unfortunately, I left the report on my computer at work, so I will upload the file tomorrow instead of tonight.

Today, I talked with Love for a little while about my report. He asked me a few clarification questions and we discussed the bits and overhead some more. I also asked him where to go from here. He said that I could either look at how to write a batch file and start thinking about how I'll work with the wrappers or just take his code and start playing around with it. I opted to read up on batch files. They're actually really easy to implement, at least a brute-force version. The hard part came when trying to hunt down all the dos-prompt commands for XST, as most of the documentation and help only pertained to the GUI version. I got it working before I left the office. I'd like to look into scripting, as I'm sure that writing loops is much easier and more versatile than just copying/pasting/modifying code.

Today, I ran some more syntheses and wrote out some batch files to let them run over the weekend. I wrote enough to start looking at the divider-multipliers and divider-adders. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and I will have all the data collected by Monday.

Woohoo, another weekend! I spent the time mainly just looking at my website and seeing what I can update.