Partitioning placement method and apparatus
First Claim
1. For an electronic design automation placer that defines positions of circuit modules in an integrated circuit (“
- IC”
) layout, wherein the placer uses a set of nets and each net specifies a set of circuit elements in the layout, a method for computing placement-configuration costs comprising;
a) defining a plurality of diagonal partitioning cutlines, wherein each diagonal cutline defines two sub-regions of a region of the IC layout;
b) for each particular diagonal cutline, calculating the number of nets that have circuit elements in both the sub-regions defined by the particular diagonal cutline; and
c) computing a cost estimate based on the calculated numbers.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Some embodiments of the invention are placers that use diagonal lines in calculating the costs of potential placement configurations. For instance, some embodiments estimate the wirelength cost of a placement configuration by (1) identifying, for each net in a list, a bounding box that encloses all the circuit elements of the net, (2) computing an attribute of each bounding box by using a line that can be completely or partially diagonal, and (3) computing the wirelength cost estimate based on the computed attributes. To estimate the wirelength cost of different placement configurations, other embodiments construct connection graphs that model the net interconnect topologies. These connection graphs can have edges that are completely or partially diagonal. Other embodiments use diagonal lines to measure congestion costs of potential placement configurations. For instance, some placers use diagonal lines as cut lines that divide the IC layout into regions. These placers then generate congestion-cost estimates by measuring the number of nets cut by the diagonal cut lines.
146 Citations
17 Claims
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1. For an electronic design automation placer that defines positions of circuit modules in an integrated circuit (“
- IC”
) layout, wherein the placer uses a set of nets and each net specifies a set of circuit elements in the layout, a method for computing placement-configuration costs comprising;
a) defining a plurality of diagonal partitioning cutlines, wherein each diagonal cutline defines two sub-regions of a region of the IC layout;
b) for each particular diagonal cutline, calculating the number of nets that have circuit elements in both the sub-regions defined by the particular diagonal cutline; and
c) computing a cost estimate based on the calculated numbers. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
- IC”
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12. For a placer that defines positions of circuit modules in an integrated circuit (“
- IC”
) layout, wherein the placer defines a set of nets, and each net specifies a set of circuit elements in the layout, a method of computing cost estimates for placement configurations, the method comprising;
a) defining a plurality of cutlines, wherein each cutline partitions the IC layout into two sub-regions, wherein at least one of said cutlines is diagonal and one of said cutlines is not diagonal, b) for each particular cutline, counting the number of nets that have circuit elements in both the sub-regions defined by the particular cutline;
c) computing a cost estimate based on the counted numbers. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14)
- IC”
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15. For an electronic design automation application, a placement method for defining the positions of circuit modules in an integrated circuit (“
- IC”
) layout, wherein the application defines a set of nets, and each net specifies a set of circuit elements in the layout, the method comprisinga) defining a plurality of diagonal cutlines and a plurality of non-diagonal cutlines, wherein each cutline partitions the IC layout into two sub-regions;
b) for each cutline, computing the number of nets that have circuit elements in both the sub-regions defined by the particular cutline;
c) squaring each computed number;
d) adding the squared computed numbers to obtain a congestion cost estimate;
e) changing the positions of the circuit modules in the IC layout to reduce the congestion cost estimate. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17)
- IC”
Specification