Placement Optimization with Deep Reinforcement Learning

Placement Optimization is an important problem in systems and chip design, which consists of mapping the nodes of a graph onto a limited set of resources to optimize for an objective, subject to constraints. In this paper, we start by motivating reinforcement learning as a solution to the placement problem. We then give an overview of what deep reinforcement learning is. We next formulate the placement problem as a reinforcement learning problem, and show how this problem can be solved with policy gradient optimization. Finally, we describe lessons we have learned from training deep reinforcement learning policies across a variety of placement optimization problems.