Binary and multi-valued SPFD-based wire removal in PLA networks

Abstract

This paper describes the application of binary and multivalued SPFD-based wire removal techniques for circuit implementations utilizing networks of PLAs. It has been shown that a design style based on a multi-level network of approximately equal-sized PLAs results in a dense, fast, and crosstalk-resistant layout. Wire removal is a technique where the total number of wires between individual circuit nodes is reduced, either by removing wires, or replacing them with other existing wires. Three separate wire removal experiments are performed. Either wire removal is invoked before clustering the original netlist into a network of PLAs, or after clustering, or both before and after clustering. For wire removal before clustering, binary SPFD-based wire removal is used. For wire removal after clustering, multi-valued SPFD-based wire removal is used since the multi-output PLAs can be viewed as multi-valued single output nodes. We demonstrate that these techniques are effective. The most effective approach is to perform wire removal both before and after clustering. Using these techniques, we obtain a reduction in placed and routed circuit area of about 11%. This reduction is significantly higher (about 20%) for the larger circuits we used in our experiments.