Performance driven global routing for standard cell design

Advances in fabrication technology have resulted in a continual shrinkage of device dimensions. This has resulted in smaller device delays, greater resistance along interconnect wires, and a greater impact of interconnect on total system performance. These changes have driven a considerable number of studies on single-net interconnect optimization, but relatively little work has been done to integrate the results on single-net optimization with the problem of global routing and interconnect optimization for the entire circuit. In this paper, we present the DECIMATE global router for performance driven standard cell design. The router applies both interconnect topology optimization and variable-width wire sizing optimization results to the global routing problem, while maintaining routing areas that are comparable with TimberWolf Systems' well-known commercial global router. Optimal selection of interconnection structures is shown to be an NP-Hard problem; we provide a simple heur...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: ISPD
• Authors: Jason Cong, Patrick H. Madden
• Keywords: Global Router, Hardware, Interconnect, Interconnect Optimization, ISPD 1997