From RTL to Prompt Coding: Empowering the Next Generation of Chip Designers through LLMs

TL;DR

This paper introduces an LLM-based educational platform that simplifies chip design for beginners, guiding them from initial ideas to tapeout-ready chips through an integrated workflow, demonstrated by successful student projects.

Contribution

It presents the first holistic educational platform using LLMs for both frontend and backend chip design, enabling accessible learning for novices.

Findings

High-school students successfully designed functional chips within 90 minutes.

All student groups completed tapeout-ready projects despite no prior experience.

The platform demonstrates potential to broaden chip design education and inspire new learners.

Abstract

This paper presents an LLM-based learning platform for chip design education, aiming to make chip design accessible to beginners without overwhelming them with technical complexity. It represents the first educational platform that assists learners holistically across both frontend and backend design. The proposed approach integrates an LLM-based chat agent into a browser-based workflow built upon the Tiny Tapeout ecosystem. The workflow guides users from an initial design idea through RTL code generation to a tapeout-ready chip. To evaluate the concept, a case study was conducted with 18 high-school students. Within a 90-minute session they developed eight functional VGA chip designs in a 130 nm technology. Despite having no prior experience in chip design, all groups successfully implemented tapeout-ready projects. The results demonstrate the feasibility and educational impact of LLM-assisted chip design, highlighting its potential to attract and inspire early learners and significantly broaden the target audience for the field.