An integrated-spreading-based macro-refining algorithm for large-scale mixed-size circuit designs

With the increasing use of pre-designed macros in a modern chip and its induced high design complexity, macro placement has become a challenging problem in today's design houses. Most popular macro placement algorithms adopt a three-stage approach: placement prototyping, macro placement, and standard-cell placement, where cell positions after macro placement are assumed the same as those at the prototyping stage, possibly misguiding succeeding standard-cell placement. To close the gap between macro and standard-cell placement, we propose a macro-refining algorithm that adopts an integrated spreading technique considering the spreading of both macros and cells and the dynamic information of cell positions to improve macro placement. We further propose a new force-modulation technique to refine macro placement and a congestion-aware macro shifter to preserve more space for better routability. Extensive experiments based on various macro placements show that our proposed techniques are effective and our macro-refining algorithm can find significantly better placement solutions for large-scale mixed-size circuit designs.