VeriMind: Agentic LLM for Automated Verilog Generation with a Novel Evaluation Metric

Abstract: Designing Verilog modules requires meticulous attention to correctness, efficiency, and adherence to design specifications. However, manually writing Verilog code remains a complex and time-consuming task that demands both expert knowledge and iterative refinement. Leveraging recent advancements in LLMs and their structured text generation capabilities, we propose VeriMind, an agentic LLM framework for Verilog code generation that significantly automates and optimizes the synthesis process. Unlike traditional LLM-based code generators, VeriMind employs a structured reasoning approach: given a user-provided prompt describing design requirements, the system first formulates a detailed train of thought before the final Verilog code is generated. This multi-step methodology enhances interpretability, accuracy, and adaptability in hardware design. In addition, we introduce a novel evaluation metric-pass@ARC-which combines the conventional pass@k measure with Average Refinement Cycles (ARC) to capture both success rate and the efficiency of iterative refinement. Experimental results on diverse hardware design tasks demonstrated that our approach achieved up to $8.3\%$ improvement on pass@k metric and $8.1\%$ on pass@ARC metric. These findings underscore the transformative potential of agentic LLMs in automated hardware design, RTL development, and digital system synthesis.