Abstract:The process of designing an integrated circuit is complex, and is typically broken into several sub-problems, each solved using heuristics. Historically, heuristics for the routing problem have all had a similar design philosophy: route each net in the circuit sequentially. We feel that all sequential heuristics have certain inherent limitations, and discuss the need for routing heuristics that route all nets simultaneously.
We present an approach for simultaneously routing nets that is based on a virtual auction. This heuristic is a novel approach, and it differs markedly from conventional routers. We also present the details of a routing tool built to implement this auction strategy on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, called Quark.
One of the benefits of an auction approach to routing is that there are many possible bidding strategies that can be used. We call a net's bidding strategy its personality. We discuss several possible personalities, each with different characteristics, and show how they are implemented in our Quark tool.
We show experimental results for Quark, which demonstrate that it is a state-of-the-art router. Our results indicate that there is value for investigating simultaneous routers, especially within an auction framework.