An A* algorithm to yield an optimal solution for the channel routing problem in VLSI

Abstract

An algorithm is proposed to find an optimal solution for the channel-routing problem in VLSI design. The algorithm is an A* algorithm with good heuristics and dominance rules to terminate unnecessary nodes in the searching-tree. Theoretical and experimental results indicate that it behaves quite well in average cases. The authors obtained an optimal solution for the Deutsch difficult case in 5.5 minutes of CPU time, with the algorithm implemented in Pascal and run on a VAX 11/750 computer.<>