用大模型自动解释硬件代码,提升设计效率
ML For Hardware Design Interpretability: Challenges and Opportunities
- 用大模型将硬件代码转为自然语言描述
- 现有方法在数据与计算上仍面临挑战
- 适合关注硬件自动化设计的研究者
机器学习模型规模与复杂度的增加,推动了对高效支持机器学习工作负载的定制化硬件加速器的需求。然而,此类加速器的设计过程耗时且高度依赖工程师通过清晰文档和有效沟通确保设计可解释性。近年来,大语言模型(LLMs)为自动化这些可解释性任务提供了契机,尤其是将寄存器传输级(RTL)代码生成自然语言描述的任务(即“RTL-to-NL”)。本文探讨了设计可解释性,特别是RTL-to-NL任务,对硬件设计效率的影响。我们综述了现有将大语言模型应用于该任务的工作,指出尚未解决的关键挑战,包括数据、计算与模型开发方面的问题,并识别了应对这些挑战的机遇。旨在引导未来研究利用机器学习自动化RTL-to-NL任务,提升硬件设计可解释性,从而加速设计流程,满足机器学习等领域对定制硬件日益增长的需求。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The increasing size and complexity of machine learning (ML) models have driven the growing need for custom hardware accelerators capable of efficiently supporting ML workloads. However, the design of such accelerators remains a time-consuming process, heavily relying on engineers to manually ensure design interpretability through clear documentation and effective communication. Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) offer a promising opportunity to automate these design interpretability tasks, particularly the generation of natural language descriptions for register-transfer level (RTL) code, what we refer to as "RTL-to-NL tasks." In this paper, we examine how design interpretability, particularly in RTL-to-NL tasks, influences the efficiency of the hardware design process. We review existing work adapting LLMs for these tasks, highlight key challenges that remain unaddressed, including those related to data, computation, and model development, and identify opportunities to address them. By doing so, we aim to guide future research in leveraging ML to automate RTL-to-NL tasks and improve hardware design interpretability, thereby accelerating the hardware design process and meeting the increasing demand for custom hardware accelerators in machine learning and beyond.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。