Mickey: a macro cell global router

Abstract

The authors present a new graph-based macro cell global router. The placement of the macro cells need not have the slicing structure and the macro cells may have any rectilinear shape. A key contribution is a new algorithm which efficiently generates M shortest routes for every net. The global router then selects one route for each net while seeking to avoid the net routing-order dependence problem. Mickey has two different objective functions, making it applicable to different design styles. It can be used to either minimize the chip area or to minimize the total wire length under channel capacity constraints. Test results on industrial circuits show that Mickey outperforms existing approaches.<>