044d4c3974
backport of #7474
This PR adds C8 (INT8) KV cache quantization support for standard GQA
attention models (e.g., Qwen3-32B W8A8C8). C8 uses static per-channel
quantization scales to store KV cache in INT8, reducing KV cache memory
by ~50% compared to BF16, enabling higher batch concurrency and longer
context lengths on the same hardware.
**Key changes:**
1. **`attention_v1.py`** — New `AscendC8AttentionBackendImpl` subclass
of `AscendAttentionBackendImpl`:
- `_prepare_c8_scales`: Shards per-channel scales/offsets to the current
TP rank and pre-computes BF16 BNSD-shaped antiquant tensors (one-time
per layer).
- `_quantize_kv_to_int8`: Quantizes BF16 K/V to INT8 before
`reshape_and_cache`, using pre-cached inverse scales.
- `_forward_c8_decode`: FIA V1 BNSD paged attention with native INT8 KV
and `perchannel` antiquant mode.
- `_forward_c8_chunked_prefill`: Splits decode (FIA V1 BNSD paged INT8)
and prefill (FIA V1 TND float) into two kernel calls.
- `_forward_c8_fused_infer_attention`: Handles `PrefillNoCache` and
`PrefillCacheHit` states.
2. **`quantization/methods/kv_c8.py`** — New
`AscendC8KVCacheAttentionMethod` scheme:
- Creates `k/v_cache_scale/offset` parameters via
`_c8_kv_scale_weight_loader`, which handles per-channel scale shapes and
lazy resizing.
- Sets `layer.kv_cache_torch_dtype = torch.int8` so
`get_kv_cache_spec()` returns INT8 dtype automatically.
- Upgrades `layer.impl` to `AscendC8AttentionBackendImpl` via class
surgery.
3. **`quantization/modelslim_config.py`** — C8 branch in
`get_quant_method()` activates when `kv_cache_type == "C8"` in
`quant_model_description.json`.
4. **`patch/worker/patch_qwen3_c8.py`** — Intercepts per-channel C8
scale/offset weights before `AutoWeightsLoader` discards them, routing
them to the parameters created by `AscendC8KVCacheAttentionMethod`.
5. **`tests/ut/quantization/test_kv_c8.py`** — Unit tests covering
`_c8_kv_scale_weight_loader`, `AscendC8KVCacheAttentionMethod`, and
`AscendC8AttentionBackendImpl` scale helpers.
Yes. Users can now serve Qwen3-32B W8A8C8 quantized models with INT8 KV
cache on Ascend NPU. The model checkpoint must contain a
`quant_model_description.json` with `"kv_cache_type": "C8"` and
per-channel scale/offset tensors in safetensors.
No changes to the serving CLI — the feature activates automatically when
the quantization config is detected.
Benchmarked with `vllm serve` (TP=8, `max_num_seqs=256`,
`max_model_len=131072`, `enable_chunked_prefill=true`) + `random_bench`
(input_len=10240, output_len=2048, 960 prompts, max_concurrency=192):
```
============ Serving Benchmark Result ============
Successful requests: 960
Failed requests: 0
Maximum request concurrency: 192
Benchmark duration (s): 1359.81
Total input tokens: 9830400
Total generated tokens: 1966080
Request throughput (req/s): 0.71
Output token throughput (tok/s): 1445.85
Peak output token throughput (tok/s): 2304.00
Total token throughput (tok/s): 8675.12
---------------Time to First Token----------------
Mean TTFT (ms): 24598.51
Median TTFT (ms): 23167.02
P50 TTFT (ms): 23167.02
P90 TTFT (ms): 47717.08
P99 TTFT (ms): 84402.61
-----Time per Output Token (excl. 1st token)------
Mean TPOT (ms): 120.76
Median TPOT (ms): 121.50
P50 TPOT (ms): 121.50
P90 TPOT (ms): 127.05
P99 TPOT (ms): 130.13
---------------Inter-token Latency----------------
Mean ITL (ms): 120.70
Median ITL (ms): 90.34
P50 ITL (ms): 90.34
P90 ITL (ms): 93.79
P99 ITL (ms): 101.80
==================================================
```
All attention states verified: `PrefillNoCache`, `PrefillCacheHit`,
`ChunkedPrefill`, `DecodeOnly`.
- vLLM version: v0.17.0
- vLLM main:
8b6325758c
Signed-off-by: lico67373 <918688502@qq.com>
Co-authored-by: LICO67373 <110013619+LICO1314@users.noreply.github.com>
vLLM Ascend Plugin
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- [2026/02] We released the new official version v0.13.0! Please follow the official guide to start using vLLM Ascend Plugin on Ascend.
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Overview
vLLM Ascend (vllm-ascend) is a community maintained hardware plugin for running vLLM seamlessly on the Ascend NPU.
It is the recommended approach for supporting the Ascend backend within the vLLM community. It adheres to the principles outlined in the [RFC]: Hardware pluggable, providing a hardware-pluggable interface that decouples the integration of the Ascend NPU with vLLM.
By using vLLM Ascend plugin, popular open-source models, including Transformer-like, Mixture-of-Experts (MoE), Embedding, Multi-modal LLMs can run seamlessly on the Ascend NPU.
Prerequisites
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- OS: Linux
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Please use the following recommended versions to get started quickly:
| Version | Release type | Doc |
|---|---|---|
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|---|---|---|
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