The 43rd IEEE International Conference on Computer Design
(ICCD 2025)
November 10-12, 2025
Dallas, USA
Competition Date/Time: November 12, 2025, 9:00am - 6:00pm Central Time)
Location: Co-located with ICCD, UT Dallas, Texas (Online & In-Person Participation), Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center
Registration Deadline: November 11th
The LLMs for Hardware Design Challenge at ICCD 2025 invites participants worldwide to explore how Large Language Models (LLMs) can revolutionize chip design. This competition challenges individuals to optimize Register-Transfer Level (RTL) hardware designs for Power, Performance, and Area (PPA) improvements using any LLM of their choice. Participants will receive baseline RTL designs containing ample opportunities for optimization and will use an intuitive web-based competition platform to submit improved RTL versions. Each submission will be automatically verified for functional correctness, synthesized through a standardized backend flow, and scored on PPA metrics. The competition will run in a 9-6pm live session on November 12, accessible to both in-person attendees (with an on-site help station at the conference location) and remote participants (supported via online zoom breakout rooms). Results will be posted on a real-time leaderboard, and participants may submit multiple improved designs during the challenge window.
The top three performers will receive cash awards and formal recognition based on overall PPA optimization scores as follows:
Eligibility:
Open to all participants globally. Only currently enrolled students are eligible for monetary prizes. No prior hardware experience is required - just creativity and effective LLM usage!
Registration:
Registration is required to participate. Participants must register as soon as possible but before November 11, 2025, via the competition portal https://pilotcrew.ai/competition/iccd-2025-llms-for-hardware-design-challenge. Participants are instructed to Sign Up,
add required registration details and once logged in to the competition page, enroll in "ICCD 2025 LLMs for Hardware Design Challenge". All registered competitions can be seen via the Dashboard tab.
Organizers:
Kevin Immanuel Gubbi, Mohammadnavid Tarighat, and Chongzhou Fang, Houman Homayoun, Soheil Salehi, Farinaz Koushanfar, and Benjamin Carrion Schaefer