HDEval

Hardware Description Evaluation suite for LLM

This repository has a set of benchmarks to evaluate LLMs performance with Hardware generation.

READ THE USAGE RULES, we do not want to allow LLMs to use this benchmarks for training.

License

This project is licensed under the GPL License with additional terms. See the LICENSE file for details.

Important Notice: This software may not be used to train machine learning models, including large language models (LLMs). It is permitted for benchmarking purposes only. See the NOTICE file for more information. Any file copied out of this repository must retain this license.

Usage Rules

• No LLM is allowed to scrap or use this repo. We have GPL license, and we never push the benchmarks directly (json file)

• Use the crypt/decrypt script, only push hdeval files (not json)

• Do NOT push the benchmarks or benhmark contents to another repo, unless it has the same HUMANS-only license.

• Never do a pull request or create an issue showing the context of the json files. Explain the problem, but do not show any json file content. Similar rules to cheating in classroom.

• You can create a pull request for new benchmarks, but always use the "crypt" command to transform the json file[s] to hdeval file[s].

• If you use the json contents against an LLM, make sure that it can not be used for training. E.g: it is OK to use OpenAI API (Python) but NOT OK to use the chatgpt GUI because the OpenAI usage license allows to use gui chats for training.

• NOT LEGAL or OK to use in the following places because they keep record and may be used for training:

  • Not OK with ChatGPT gui (OK python prompt)
  • Not OK with Claude gui (OK python prompt)
  • Not OK with Mixtral gui (OK python prompt)
  • Not OK with leader board competitions or ELO scores

After cloning the repo, run decrypt, and it will create the json files for all the files needed.

git clone git@github.com:masc-ucsc/hdeval.git
cd hdeval/sample
./decrypt

If you want to commit or pull request, use the crypt. NEVER push the json file.

cd hdeval/bench_name
../crypt version
git add version.hdeval
# NEVER NEVER ADD the json file

Do decrypt sample:

cd sample
rm -f 24a.json   # decrypt will not overwrite if it exists already
../decrypt 24a

The suggestion is to use the year and letters for the version. To pick the latest version, the alphabetical sort is used over the hdeval filename (ls | sort).

Python interface

The suggestion is to use the "hdeval_open("bench", ["version"]) provided by hdeval.py sample code. Cut and paste it to your python code, it will download the benchmark requested into your "~/.cache/hdeval" directory, keeping only the hdeval format (never the json). It returns a string with the json text file contents.

Sample of usage:

# Before
x = json.load("some.json")

# Now
txt = hdeval_open("sample","24a")
x = json.read(txt)

Organization

Each HDEval benchmark has a directory with the name. Each has a README file with some information and acknowledgements/contributions.

For each directory, there can be several version files. When running, the benchmark, it should say the version.

Create a benchmark

Check the sample with the recommended version name (year + letter).

The "decrypt" version should have a json file with the following format:

For each test, there is a "test_name"" (simple_halfadder in sample_24a). This name should match the "name" field

• Each test is an json map with the following fields:

  • "instruction": the spec or instructions that the LLM will have to follow to create the functionality.

  • "response": the Verilog module that the LLM generated code should do a LEC against.

  • "pipeline": 0 or 1 indicating wether the test has pipeline (flops or latches or memories)

  • "name": The test name, it should match the json array entry name.

  • "interface": The Verilog module interface that this test should generate. It can use SystemVerilog syntax. The module name should match the "name" field.

The json file should "\n" instead of "newlines". Check sample.

Credit

If you use HDEval in your paper, credit the benchmark creators inside the bench_name/README as they recommend. Also, credit the HDEval benchmark.

@inproceedings{zakharov2024hdleval,
  title={{HDLEval: Benchmarking LLMs for Multiple HDLs}},
  author={Farzaneh Rabiei Kashanaki and Mark Zakharov and Jose Renau},
  booktitle={{The First IEEE International Workshop on LLM-Aided Design (ISLAD)}},
  year={2024},
  month={July}
}