A machine-learning system has been trained to place memory blocks in microchip designs. The system beats human experts at the task, and offers the promise of better, more-rapidly produced chip designs than are currently possible.

Success or failure in designing microchips depends heavily on steps known as floorplanning and placement. These steps determine where memory and logic elements are located on a chip. The locations, in turn, strongly affect whether the completed chip design can satisfy operational requirements such as processing speed and power efficiency. So far, the floorplanning task, in particular, has defied all attempts at automation. It is therefore performed iteratively and painstakingly, over weeks or months, by expert human engineers. But in a paper in Nature, researchers from Google (Mirhoseini et al.¹) report a machine-learning approach that achieves superior chip floorplanning in hours. Read More

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