Prompt2Silicon Workshop Designs & Demo

Table of Contents

• Repository Overview
• Simulating the Workshop Designs
• Generating the GDSII for the Workshop Designs
• Chat Agent and Workflow Demo
• Contact Information

Repository Overview

This repository is associated with the paper:

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

A preprint will be made available on arXiv.

This repository contains all student designs developed during the LLM-assisted Tiny Tapeout Workshop with German high-school students (Grades 10–12). The 90-minute workshop served as a case study to evaluate the methodology introduced in the paper. The workshop demonstrated how Large Language Models (LLMs) can guide beginners from natural-language design ideas to functional VGA chip implementations using the Tiny Tapeout open-source ecosystem.

The LLM-based chat agent used during the workshop is hosted on Hugging Face (available in English and German), and this repository provides instructions on how to replicate the workflow.

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Workshop Designs Overview

The designs are located in the src/ directory.

No.	File Name	Design Name	Description
1	blue_car.v	tt_um_vga_blue_car	Interactive VGA design where a blue car can be moved horizontally across the screen using pins 0 (left) and 1 (right).
2	aquarium.v	tt_um_vga_aquarium	Animation of multiple fish swimming in an aquarium.
3	pixelart_cat.v	tt_um_vga_pixelart_cat	Static pixel-art style cat image.
4	blue_square.v	tt_um_vga_blue_square	Static VGA design showing a centered blue square.
5	stick_figure.v	tt_um_vga_stick_figure	Interactive animation where a stick figure jumps from left to right depending on pins 1 (left) and 2 (right).
6	red_car.v	tt_um_vga_red_car	Interactive VGA design where a red car can be moved horizontally across the screen using pins 0 (left) and 1 (right).
7	unicorn.v	tt_um_vga_unicorn	Animation of a unicorn catching a carrot.
8	tree.v	tt_um_vga_tree	Animation of a tree with leaves gently falling.

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Simulating the Workshop Designs

To explore or test the workshop designs:

1. Open the corresponding design file in the src/ folder.

2. Review the Verilog source code to understand the implemented logic and behavior.

3. Open the Tiny Tapeout VGA Playground in your browser.

4. Copy and paste the Verilog code of the desired design into the Playground’s code editor.

5. Rename the module to tt_um_vga_example (required by VGA Playground).

6. Run the simulation directly in the browser to visualize the VGA output and verify its functionality.

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Generating the GDSII for the Workshop Designs

The repository supports the synthesis and backend flow via GitHub Actions, using the Tiny Tapeout Verilog template.

To generate the GDSII layout for any workshop design:

1. Fork this repository.
2. Open the file src/project.v.
3. Instantiate the vga_core as one of the workshop designs by inserting its module name.
   For example:

   tt_um_vga_blue_square vga_core (
       .clk(clk),
       .rst_n(rst_n),
       .ena(ena),
       .ui_in(ui_in),
       .uo_out(uo_out),
       .uio_in(uio_in),
       .uio_out(uio_out),
       .uio_oe(uio_oe)
   );

4. Commit and push the changes to your fork.
5. The GitHub Actions backend (TinyTapeout GDS flow) will automatically start.

Once the workflow completes, all artifacts can be viewed in the Actions tab of the repository. Tiny Tapeout also provides detailed documentation on the GDS generation and the navigation of GitHub Actions.

Note: For some designs, you may need to adjust the number of tiles in the info.yaml file, as shown below:

Design Name	Tiles
tt_um_vga_blue_car	1×1
tt_um_vga_aquarium	1×1
tt_um_vga_pixelart_cat	1×1
tt_um_vga_blue_square	1×1
tt_um_vga_stick_figure	2×2
tt_um_vga_red_car	1×1
tt_um_vga_unicorn	1×1
tt_um_vga_tree	1×2

Chat Agent and Workflow Demo

Two hosted versions of the chat agent are available on Hugging Face:

• 🇬🇧 English version
• 🇩🇪 German version

⚠️ Note: Using the chat agents requires an OpenAI API key.
Please ensure that a valid key is configured in the demo application.

To replicate the complete educational workflow used in the workshop:

1. Open the Chat Agent (in your preferred language) in one browser tab and insert your OpenAI API key.
2. Open the Tiny Tapeout VGA Playground in a second tab for simulation.
3. Create a new design repository using the TinyTapeout Verilog Template.
4. Start the workflow and begin interacting with the chat agent:
   • Describe your design idea in natural language.
   • Let the LLM-based agent generate Verilog code.
   • Paste the generated code into the VGA Playground for simulation.
   • Perform debugging or refinement iterations.
   • Once satisfied, commit the design to your Tiny Tapeout repo and trigger the GDSII workflow.

Contact Information

For questions, collaboration requests, or further details about the Prompt2Silicon workshop or the paper, please contact:

Dr.-Ing. Lukas Krupp
Microelectronic System Design Research Group
RPTU University of Kaiserslautern-Landau
📧 lukas.krupp [AT] rptu.de