CorrectHDL: Agentic HDL Design with LLMs Leveraging High-Level Synthesis as Reference

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Xu, Kangwei, Zhang, Grace Li, Schlichtmann, Ulf, Li, Bing
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Xu, Kangwei
Zhang, Grace Li
Schlichtmann, Ulf
Li, Bing
author_facet Xu, Kangwei
Zhang, Grace Li
Schlichtmann, Ulf
Li, Bing
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable potential in hardware front-end design using hardware description languages (HDLs). However, their inherent tendency toward hallucination often introduces functional errors into the generated HDL designs. To address this issue, we propose the framework CorrectHDL that leverages high-level synthesis (HLS) results as functional references to correct potential errors in LLM-generated HDL designs.The input to the proposed framework is a C/C++ program that specifies the target circuit's functionality. The program is provided to an LLM to directly generate an HDL design, whose syntax errors are repaired using a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) mechanism. The functional correctness of the LLM-generated circuit is iteratively improved by comparing its simulated behavior with an HLS reference design produced by conventional HLS tools, which ensures the functional correctness of the result but can lead to suboptimal area and power efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate that circuits generated by the proposed framework achieve significantly better area and power efficiency than conventional HLS designs and approach the quality of human-engineered circuits. Meanwhile, the correctness of the resulting HDL implementation is maintained, highlighting the effectiveness and potential of agentic HDL design leveraging the generative capabilities of LLMs and the rigor of traditional correctness-driven IC design flows.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_16395
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CorrectHDL: Agentic HDL Design with LLMs Leveraging High-Level Synthesis as Reference
Xu, Kangwei
Zhang, Grace Li
Schlichtmann, Ulf
Li, Bing
Artificial Intelligence
Programming Languages
Software Engineering
Systems and Control
Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable potential in hardware front-end design using hardware description languages (HDLs). However, their inherent tendency toward hallucination often introduces functional errors into the generated HDL designs. To address this issue, we propose the framework CorrectHDL that leverages high-level synthesis (HLS) results as functional references to correct potential errors in LLM-generated HDL designs.The input to the proposed framework is a C/C++ program that specifies the target circuit's functionality. The program is provided to an LLM to directly generate an HDL design, whose syntax errors are repaired using a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) mechanism. The functional correctness of the LLM-generated circuit is iteratively improved by comparing its simulated behavior with an HLS reference design produced by conventional HLS tools, which ensures the functional correctness of the result but can lead to suboptimal area and power efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate that circuits generated by the proposed framework achieve significantly better area and power efficiency than conventional HLS designs and approach the quality of human-engineered circuits. Meanwhile, the correctness of the resulting HDL implementation is maintained, highlighting the effectiveness and potential of agentic HDL design leveraging the generative capabilities of LLMs and the rigor of traditional correctness-driven IC design flows.
title CorrectHDL: Agentic HDL Design with LLMs Leveraging High-Level Synthesis as Reference
topic Artificial Intelligence
Programming Languages
Software Engineering
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16395