Utilization of vacant terminals for improved over-the-cell channel routing

  • Authors:

  • N. D. Holmes;N. A. Sherwani;M. Sarrafzadeh

  • Affiliations:

  • Western Michigan Univ., Kalamazoo, MI;-;-

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

The WISER algorithm for over-the-cell channel routing in the standard cell design style using the two-layer routing model is presented. The novelty of this approach lies in the use of vacant terminals for over-the-cell routing. Longest paths in the vertical constraint graph and channel density are considered as a basis for choosing nets to route over the rows of standard cells. WISER has been implemented and tested on several benchmarks, including PRIMARY1 and Deutsch's difficult example. The experimental results show that WISER reduces the channel height by an average of 29%, as compared to conventional channel routers, and 15%, as compared to existing over-the-cell routers. In addition, it reduces the total number of vias per routing by 32%