用可微分模型预测芯片布线后性能,显著提升时序表现。
PPAPlace: Differentiable Cross-Stage Objectives for Chip Placement Optimization

- 构建双流神经网络,融合网表图与布局网格信息,预测布线后时序指标。
- 在五个测试电路上使最差负松弛和总负松弛平均改善22%和51%。
- 适用于追求高时序性能的芯片设计者,无需重新训练即可部署。
宏单元布局显著影响芯片的功耗、性能和面积(PPA)。现有布局方法主要优化半周长线长(HPWL),但最新基准测试显示其与布线后时序指标(如最差负松弛WNS、总负松弛TNS)相关性接近零。六种人工智能布局器因此均导致PPA劣化。现有方法仅使用宏单元表示并以预布线指标为标签,但对十款电路在四个设计阶段的标签保真度分析表明,HPWL和预布线时序无法准确反映最终布线后时序排序。相比之下,全局布线后阶段在时序保真度与标签生成成本间取得最佳平衡。基于此,本文提出PPAPlace:一种时序驱动的可微分代理模型,从宏单元与标准单元布局预测布线后PPA。该模型采用双流结构,结合网表图注意力与布局网格空间卷积,以全局布线后标签训练。预测的WNS与TNS梯度可端到端反向传播至单元坐标。本方法通过两种方式利用梯度:作为共目标注入解析布局器优化循环(PPAPlace-CoOpt),或作为后处理步骤通过投影梯度下降调整宏位置(PPAPlace-Refine)。在五个未参与训练的ChiPBench测试电路上,该方法相较层次基线平均提升WNS 22%、TNS 51%,同时保持功耗与可布线性。代码已开源于https://github.com/ValleyC/PPAPlace。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Macro placement significantly affects a chip's post-route performance, power, and area (PPA). Most placement methods optimize half-perimeter wirelength (HPWL) as the primary objective. However, recent benchmarking shows a near-zero correlation between HPWL and post-route timing metrics such as the worst negative slack (WNS) and total negative slack (TNS). As a result, all six evaluated artificial intelligence (AI) placers degraded PPA relative to the hierarchical baseline. Recent efforts have tried to train cross-stage predictors to close this gap. However, existing methods focus on macro-only representations and use pre-route metrics as training labels. A label fidelity study of ten circuits at four design flow stages reveals that HPWL and pre-route timing poorly reflect final post-route timing rankings. In contrast, post-global-routing achieves the best balance between final timing fidelity and label generation cost-effectiveness. Based on this finding, PPAPlace is a timing-driven differentiable surrogate predicting post-route PPA from macro and standard-cell placements. The surrogate is a dual-stream predictor that combines graph attention over the chip netlist with spatial convolution over the placement grid. It is trained on post-global-routing labels. The predicted WNS and TNS gradients flow end-to-end back to cell coordinates. PPAPlace exploits these gradients in two ways: as a co-objective injected into an analytical placer's optimization loop (PPAPlace-CoOpt), and as a post-placement refinement step that adjusts macro positions via projected gradient descent (PPAPlace-Refine). On five ChiPBench test circuits excluded from training, PPAPlace improves average WNS and TNS by 22\% and 51\% over the hierarchical baseline while preserving power and routability, using the same predictor without test-circuit retraining. Code is available at https://github.com/ValleyC/PPAPlace.
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