A generic floorplanning methodology

Abstract

One of the important and time consuming stages of design automation is the physical layout design cycle. The physical layout cycle itself consists of several steps, such as partitioning, floorplanning, placement, synthesis, muting and compaction. In this paper, a generic floorplanning methodology is presented. The methodology is based on the hierarchical cooperation of two context-free languages (SCAN and GEOMETRIA). In order to achieve an acceptable planning, the SCAN language defines the partitioning of the floor area and the global acquisition strategy (scan patterns) for the placement of the macro blocks. On the other hand, GEOMETRIA language deals with the local synthesis of the block under the constraints superimposed by global scan patterns. The results obtained by this methodology are very promising in comparison with other floorplanning methodologies.<>