A standard-cell placement tool for designs with high row utilization

Abstract

In this paper we study the correlation between wirelength and routability for standard-cell placement problem, under the modern place-and-route environment. We present a placement tool named Dragon (version 2.1), and show its ability to produce good quality placement for designs with high row utilization. Compared to an industrial placer and an academic state-of-the-art placer, Dragon can produce placement with better routability and shorter total wirelength. We describe many novel algorithmic details and implementation details of this placement tool. Experimental results show that minimizing wirelength improves routability and layout quality.