A New Rip-Up and Reroute Algorithm for Very Large Scale Gate Arrays

摘要

A fast rip-up and reroute algorithm for very large scale gate arrays is proposed. The automatic routing program for gate arrays usually consists of an initial routing process and rip-up and rerouting process. The rip-up and rerouting process eliminates the unconnects introduced by the initial routing process. There are two main reasons for leaving some unconnects: routing order dependency and local wire congestion. The existing rip-up and reroute algorithms can efficiently resolve unconnects caused by the routing order dependency. However, they cannot do unconnects caused by the local wire congestion. On the other hand, the proposed algorithm combines a 'global' and 'local' rip-up and reroute process and efficiently resolve unconnects caused by both of them. The 'global' process reduces the local wire congestion by ripping up and rerouting global paths. The 'local' process eliminates the unconnects, mainly caused by routing order dependency, by ripping up and rerouting local paths. The effectiveness of our method is demonstrated by our experimental results on industrial sea-of-gates (SOG) circuits and a well-known benchmark circuit.