A template router

Automatic synthesis of analog circuits is being extensively studied and layout parasitics are increasingly being considered in the design loop. Layouts are built either through optimization or by instancing a template. In a circuit synthesis loop, the first approach is very expensive in terms of time complexity and the second one may lead low quality layouts. A better methodology will be to combine these approaches. However, a new type of router is required for such a combination; namely, the template router. This paper presents a template router and discusses how routing is coded and how this code is generated using the well known A* Algorithm.