79803932e2
### What this PR does / why we need it?
As #2947 describe, we need to transpose kv cache layout after GQA kv
transfer when prefill and decode tensor parallel size are heterogeneous,
in the previous implementation, we use `npu_paged_cache_load ` +
`tranpose` + `_npu_reshape_and_cache` to do this work.
But obviously, it is not an efficient plan, the ops above need to be
called for each layer, which introduces 3 * layer_num kernel launch, and
6 * layer_num data movement between L1 Cache and HBM for one request on
decode node. Usually, decode node uses graph mode, so these op kernels
will be called between decode forward launched by an async thread in
mooncacke connector, this kernels maybe last for several decode forward
and TTFT will increase by 3~4 decode forward time.
In this PR, we implement an AscendC fused op
`transpose_kv_cache_by_block` to do this with only once kernel launch
and move data between L1 Cache and HBM only once.
After using this fused op, the time cost in transpose kv cacke layout
can be decreased to 0.24ms from 7ms in UT on 910C, and in PD
disaggregation scenario, TTFT can decrease about 90 ~ 110 ms in
qwen3-235B.
| request_num | original | fused_op|
|:----------------------:|:---------------:|:-------------------:|
| 1 | 643 ms | 578 ms |
| 128 | 1480 ms | 1368 ms |
### Does this PR introduce _any_ user-facing change?
Use fused op by default, incase the op has bug in any scenario, provide
fallback choice using env to disable it.
**DISABLE fused op by add following env**
`export VLLM_ASCEND_FUSION_OP_TRANSPOSE_KV_CACHE_BY_BLOCK=0`
### How was this patch tested?
- vLLM version: v0.14.1
- vLLM main:
dc917cceb8
---------
Signed-off-by: lidenghui <lidenghui1110@gmail.com>
vLLM Ascend Plugin
| About Ascend | Documentation | #SIG-Ascend | Users Forum | Weekly Meeting |
English | 中文
Latest News 🔥
- [2025/12] We released the new official version v0.11.0! Please follow the official guide to start using vLLM Ascend Plugin on Ascend.
- [2025/09] We released the new official version v0.9.1! Please follow the official guide to start deploying large-scale Expert Parallelism (EP) on Ascend.
- [2025/08] We hosted the vLLM Beijing Meetup with vLLM and Tencent! Please find the meetup slides here.
- [2025/06] User stories page is now live! It kicks off with LLaMA-Factory/verl/TRL/GPUStack to demonstrate how vLLM Ascend assists Ascend users in enhancing their experience across fine-tuning, evaluation, reinforcement learning (RL), and deployment scenarios.
- [2025/06] Contributors page is now live! All contributions deserve to be recorded, thanks for all contributors.
- [2025/05] We've released the first official version v0.7.3! We collaborated with the vLLM community to publish a blog post sharing our practice: Introducing vLLM Hardware Plugin, Best Practice from Ascend NPU.
- [2025/03] We hosted the vLLM Beijing Meetup with vLLM team! Please find the meetup slides here.
- [2025/02] vLLM community officially created vllm-project/vllm-ascend repo for running vLLM seamlessly on the Ascend NPU.
- [2024/12] We are working with the vLLM community to support [RFC]: Hardware pluggable.
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
- Hardware: Atlas 800I A2 Inference series, Atlas A2 Training series, Atlas 800I A3 Inference series, Atlas A3 Training series, Atlas 300I Duo (Experimental)
- OS: Linux
- Software:
- Python >= 3.10, < 3.12
- CANN == 8.5.0 (Ascend HDK version refers to here)
- PyTorch == 2.9.0, torch-npu == 2.9.0
- vLLM (the same version as vllm-ascend)
Getting Started
Please use the following recommended versions to get started quickly:
| Version | Release type | Doc |
|---|---|---|
| v0.14.0rc1 | Latest release candidate | See QuickStart and Installation for more details |
| v0.13.0rc2 | Latest stable release candidate | See QuickStart and Installation for more details |
| v0.11.0 | Latest stable version | See QuickStart and Installation for more details |
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING for more details, which is a step-by-step guide to help you set up the development environment, build and test.
We welcome and value any contributions and collaborations:
- Please let us know if you encounter a bug by filing an issue
- Please use User forum for usage questions and help.
Branch
vllm-ascend has a main branch and a dev branch.
- main: main branch, corresponds to the vLLM main branch, and is continuously monitored for quality through Ascend CI.
- releases/vX.Y.Z: development branch, created alongside new releases of vLLM. For example,
releases/v0.13.0is the dev branch for vLLMv0.13.0version.
Below are the maintained branches:
| Branch | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| main | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM main branch and vLLM v0.13.0 tag |
| v0.7.1-dev | Unmaintained | Only doc fixes are allowed |
| v0.7.3-dev | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM 0.7.3 version, only bug fixes are allowed, and no new release tags anymore. |
| v0.9.1-dev | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM 0.9.1 version |
| v0.11.0-dev | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM 0.11.0 version |
| releases/v0.13.0 | Maintained | CI commitment for vLLM 0.13.0 version |
| rfc/feature-name | Maintained | Feature branches for collaboration |
Please refer to Versioning policy for more details.
Weekly Meeting
- vLLM Ascend Weekly Meeting: https://tinyurl.com/vllm-ascend-meeting
- Wednesday, 15:00 - 16:00 (UTC+8, Convert to your timezone)
License
Apache License 2.0, as found in the LICENSE file.