From English to ASIC: Hardware Implementation with Large Language Model
Emil Goh Maoyang Xiang I-Chyn Wey T. Hui Teo
In the realm of ASIC engineering, the landscape has been significantly
reshaped by the rapid development of LLM, paralleled by an increase in the
complexity of modern digital circuits. This complexity has escalated the
requirements for HDL coding, necessitating a higher degree of precision and
sophistication. However, challenges have been faced due to the
less-than-optimal performance of modern language models in generating hardware
description code, a situation further exacerbated by the scarcity of the
corresponding high-quality code datasets. These challenges have highlighted the
gap between the potential of LLMs to revolutionize digital circuit design and
their current capabilities in accurately interpreting and implementing hardware
specifications. To address these challenges, a strategy focusing on the
fine-tuning of the leading-edge nature language model and the reshuffling of
the HDL code dataset has been developed. The fine-tuning aims to enhance
models' proficiency in generating precise and efficient ASIC design, while the
dataset reshuffling is intended to broaden the scope and improve the quality of
training material. The model demonstrated significant improvements compared to
the base model, with approximately 10% to 20% increase in accuracy across a
wide range of temperature for the pass@1 metric. This approach is expected to
facilitate a simplified and more efficient LLM-assisted framework for complex
circuit design, leveraging their capabilities to meet the sophisticated demands
of HDL coding and thus streamlining the ASIC development process.