A modified relay-race algorithm for floorplanning in PCB and IC design

Authors : Mert VATANSEVER, İsmail Faik BAŞKAYA

Pages : 679-692

Doi:10.3906/elk-1903-122

View : 24 | Download : 11

Publication Date : 0000-00-00

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Floorplanning is a fundamental design step in the physical design of printed circuit boards PCBs and integrated circuits ICs , as it handles the complexity of layout design. From a computational point of view, the floorplanning problem is an NP hard problem, and the size of the search space grows exponentially with increasing numbers of modules. Thus, the algorithm used is an essential factor for speed and quality of the floorplanning process. Although polynomial-time floorplanning algorithms can be implemented when solution space is limited to slicing floorplans, optimal solutions often exist only in the nonslicing floorplan search space. Various stochastic algorithms such as simulated annealing SA , the genetic algorithm GA , and the relay race algorithm RRA can be used with nonslicing floorplans. In this paper, a modified relay race algorithm MRRA is proposed. Based on the experimental results utilizing MCNC benchmarks, MRRA improved both solution quality and run time for area optimization when compared with SA, GA, and RRA.
Keywords : Placement, floorplanning, CAD, VLSI, printed circuit board