In one of my homeworks I designed a frequency synthesizer where I enter the required frequency on 8 digit 7 segment displays and convert it to binary(hex) for the nco component to generate the displayed frequency.

   signal temp :std_logic_vector(27 downto 0);

   -- Read the desired frequency value from display buffer
   -- and convert it to binary(hex)

   temp <= digit7(3 downto 0) + (digit6(3 downto 0) * x"A") 
          + (digit5(3 downto 0) * x"64") + (digit4(3 downto 0) 
          * x"3e8") + (digit3(3 downto 0) * x"2710") + 
          (digit2(3 downto 0) * x"186A0") + (digit1(3 downto 0)
          * x"F4240") + (digit0(3 downto 0) * x"989680");
          
   freq_in <= temp(23 downto 0);

Is there an easier way to convert from bcd to binary? this method consumes too many logic elements from the Altera FPGA.
Mahmood