Paper ID: 2311.03383

Toward Reinforcement Learning-based Rectilinear Macro Placement Under Human Constraints

Tuyen P. Le, Hieu T. Nguyen, Seungyeol Baek, Taeyoun Kim, Jungwoo Lee, Seongjung Kim, Hyunjin Kim, Misu Jung, Daehoon Kim, Seokyong Lee, Daewoo Choi

Macro placement is a critical phase in chip design, which becomes more intricate when involving general rectilinear macros and layout areas. Furthermore, macro placement that incorporates human-like constraints, such as design hierarchy and peripheral bias, has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of additional manual labor required from designers. This study proposes a methodology that leverages an approach suggested by Google's Circuit Training (G-CT) to provide a learning-based macro placer that not only supports placing rectilinear cases, but also adheres to crucial human-like design principles. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework in achieving power-performance-area (PPA) metrics and in obtaining placements of high quality, comparable to those produced with human intervention. Additionally, our methodology shows potential as a generalized model to address diverse macro shapes and layout areas.

Submitted: Nov 3, 2023