Advanced modular cell placement system
US6067409A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Feb 11, 1997 |
| Grant date | May 23, 2000 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Feb 11, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F30/392
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A system for determining an affinity associated with relocating a cell located on a surface of a semiconductor chip to a different location on the surface is disclosed herein. Each cell may be part of a cell net containing multiple cells. The system initially defines a bounding box containing all cells in the net which contains the cell. The system then establishes a penalty vector based on the bounding box and borders of a region containing the cell, computes a normalized sum of penalties for all nets having the cell as a member, and calculates the affinity based on the normalized sum of penalties. Also included in the disclosed system are methods and apparatus for capacity and utilization planning of the use of the floor, or the surface area, and the methods and apparatus for parallelizing the process of affinity based placements using multiple processors. Finally, method and apparatus for connecting the cells based on a Steiner Tree method is disclosed.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.