VHDLBench: Benchmarking and Fine-Tuning Large Language Models for VHDL-Based Chip Design

Overview & Synopsis

The rapid evolution of digital circuit complexity demands innovative approaches to hardware design automation. While Large Language Models (LLMs) have influenced software development, their application to Hardware Description Language (HDL) generation remains largely unexplored, particularly for VHDL. This paper presents a comprehensive study for AI-assisted digital circuit design, addressing gaps in current Electronic Design Automation workflows. The work introduces a VHDL dataset of 18,500+ syntax-verified examples from open-source repositories and converted Verilog designs. Five 7B-parameter LLMs were fine-tuned using parameter-efficient QLoRA technique, enabling deployment in resource-constrained environments. To evaluate model efficacy, a rigorous three-level pipeline was established: (1) syntax and synthesis validation, (2) functional simulation with testbenches, and (3) FPGA prototyping on Zynq SoCs. Results show fine-tuned models achieve up to 92% syntax correctness and 73% functional accuracy on common design tasks, with DeepSeek-Coder demonstrating the highest performance gains. Generated designs were successfully deployed on real hardware, confirming not only syntactic but operational viability. This work demonstrates that LLMs, when tailored with domain-specific data and lightweight fine-tuning can contribute meaningfully to the future of generative EDA workflows.