Short vs Int vs Floating Point usage in Kernels

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Why would there be wasted memory if you're packing 4 char values into an integer? Or do you mean wasted memory in terms of logic elements used to convert (mask) from the 32 bits down to the chars and back.

I can't exactly explain why the DSP increased for the dot product

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I was just referring to storing chars as integers in memory, i.e. using only 8-bits out of 32.

Integer addition does not use DSP blocks, but multiplication does, hence, the difference in DSP usage.