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A graph placement methodology for fast chip design

Author

Listed:
  • Azalia Mirhoseini

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • Anna Goldie

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google
    Stanford University)

  • Mustafa Yazgan

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Joe Wenjie Jiang

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • Ebrahim Songhori

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • Shen Wang

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • Young-Joon Lee

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Eric Johnson

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • Omkar Pathak

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Azade Nova

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • Jiwoo Pak

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Andy Tong

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Kavya Srinivasa

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • William Hang

    (Stanford University)

  • Emre Tuncer

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Quoc V. Le

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • James Laudon

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

  • Richard Ho

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Roger Carpenter

    (Google Chip Implementation and Infrastructure (CI2) Team, Google)

  • Jeff Dean

    (Google Research, Brain Team, Google)

Abstract

Chip floorplanning is the engineering task of designing the physical layout of a computer chip. Despite five decades of research1, chip floorplanning has defied automation, requiring months of intense effort by physical design engineers to produce manufacturable layouts. Here we present a deep reinforcement learning approach to chip floorplanning. In under six hours, our method automatically generates chip floorplans that are superior or comparable to those produced by humans in all key metrics, including power consumption, performance and chip area. To achieve this, we pose chip floorplanning as a reinforcement learning problem, and develop an edge-based graph convolutional neural network architecture capable of learning rich and transferable representations of the chip. As a result, our method utilizes past experience to become better and faster at solving new instances of the problem, allowing chip design to be performed by artificial agents with more experience than any human designer. Our method was used to design the next generation of Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators, and has the potential to save thousands of hours of human effort for each new generation. Finally, we believe that more powerful AI-designed hardware will fuel advances in AI, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two fields.

Suggested Citation

  • Azalia Mirhoseini & Anna Goldie & Mustafa Yazgan & Joe Wenjie Jiang & Ebrahim Songhori & Shen Wang & Young-Joon Lee & Eric Johnson & Omkar Pathak & Azade Nova & Jiwoo Pak & Andy Tong & Kavya Srinivasa, 2021. "A graph placement methodology for fast chip design," Nature, Nature, vol. 594(7862), pages 207-212, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:594:y:2021:i:7862:d:10.1038_s41586-021-03544-w
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03544-w
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Juho Lauri & Sourav Dutta & Marco Grassia & Deepak Ajwani, 2023. "Learning fine-grained search space pruning and heuristics for combinatorial optimization," Journal of Heuristics, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 313-347, June.
    2. Vid Tomljenovic & Yasemin Merzifonluoglu & Giacomo Spigler, 2024. "Optimizing inland container shipping through reinforcement learning," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 339(1), pages 1025-1050, August.
    3. Azzam, Azzeddine & Gren, Ing-Marie & Andersson, Hans, 2023. "Comparative resilience of US and EU meat processing to the Covid19 pandemic," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    4. Csaba Both & Nima Dehmamy & Rose Yu & Albert-László Barabási, 2023. "Accelerating network layouts using graph neural networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Hajkowicz, Stefan & Naughtin, Claire & Sanderson, Conrad & Schleiger, Emma & Karimi, Sarvnaz & Bratanova, Alexandra & Bednarz, Tomasz, 2022. "Artificial intelligence for science – adoption trends and future development pathways," MPRA Paper 115464, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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