The configuration option with the lowest cost varies depending on the specific application.
- If there is spare nonvolatile memory already available in the system, the bitstream can be stored in system memory. It can even be stored on a hard drive or downloaded remotely over a network connection. If so, one of the slave modes should be considered: slave serial or slave parallel mode, or JTAG mode.
- If nonvolatile memory is already required for an application, it is possible to leverage it to also store FPGA configuration bitstreams with small or no incremental cost. For example, the FPGA configuration bitstream can be stored with any processor code for the board. If the processor is a MicroBlaze™ embedded processor in the FPGA, the FPGA configuration data and the MicroBlaze processor code can share the same nonvolatile memory device.