Apparatus and method for determining buffered steiner trees for complex circuits
US6591411B2 · kind B2 · utility
16Cited by
2References
45Claims
0Family size
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Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 15, 2001 |
| Grant date | Jul 8, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 15, 2021 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10S977/731
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An apparatus and method for determining buffered Steiner trees for complex circuits is provided. The apparatus and method first clusters sinks with similar characteristics such as criticality, polarity and distance. The purpose of this step is to potentially isolate positive sinks from negative ones and non-critical sinks from critical ones. The present invention then constructs low-level Steiner trees over each of these clusters. Finally, a top-level timing driven Steiner tree is computed where each cluster is treated as a sink. The top-level tree is then merged with the low-level trees to yield a solution for the entire net.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.