Detailed-Routability-Driven Analytical Placement for Mixed-Size Designs with Technology and Region Constraints

Abstract

A placer without considering modern technology and region constraints could generate solutions with irresolvable detailed-routing violations or even illegal solutions. This paper presents a high-quality placement algorithm to satisfy technology and region constraints and optimize detailed-routing routability with three major techniques: (1) a clustering algorithm followed by two-round quadratic placement to obtain an initial placement satisfying region constraints, (2) an analytical placement algorithm with new wirelength and density models to consider region constraints, and (3) a legalization algorithm that preserves the solution quality of global placement while satisfying technology/region constraints. Compared with the winning teams of the ISPD 2015 Blockage-Aware Detailed Routing-Driven Placement Contest, our placer achieves the best overall score and detailed-routing results.