FPGA AI Suite Handbook

ID 863373
Date 11/21/2025
Public
Document Table of Contents

9.3.2. Lightweight Layout Transform

The term "lightweight" differentiates this design from the "full" layout transform to" indicate that this layout transform trades-off performance (FPGA AI Suite IP throughput) in favor of reduced resource utilization.

When to Use Lightweight Layout Transform

Consider enabling the lightweight layout transform in the FPGA AI Suite IP if any of the following criteria apply to your graph:

  • The full layout transform consumes more ALMs or DSPs than budgeted and the device family is more sensitive to area usage.
  • The ML model has a small input feature, and the performance enhancement from folding the input feature may be marginal.
  • The first convolution in the ML model has a stride of 1x1, where folding does not provide extra performance gain.