In the past two decades, research in VLSI physical design has been directed toward automation of layout process. Since the cost of fabricating a circuit is a fast growing function of the circuit area, circuit layout techniques are developed with an aim to produce layouts with small areas. Other criteria of optimality such as delay and via minimization need to be taken into consideration. This book includes 14 articles that deal with various stages of the VLSI layout problem. It covers topics including partitioning, floorplanning, placement, global routing, detailed routing and layout verification. Some of the chapters are review articles, giving the state-of-the-art of the problems related to timing driven placement, global and detailed routing, and circuit partitioning. The rest of the book contains research articles, giving recent findings of new approaches to the above-mentioned problems. They are all written by leading experts in the field. This book will serve as good references for both researchers and professionals who work in this field.

Algorithmic design aspect of VLSI circuit layout and addresses optimization problems arising from various stages of circuit layout.

One of the main problems in chip design is the enormous number of possible combinations of individual chip elements within a system, and the problem of their compatibility. The recent application of data structures, efficient algorithms, and ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) has proven vital in designing the computer chips of tomorrow. This book provides an introduction to the foundations of this interdisciplinary research area, emphasizing its applications in computer aided circuit design.

Market_Desc: · Electrical Engineering Students taking courses on VLSI systems, CAD tools for VLSI, Design Automation at Final Year or Graduate Level, Computer Science courses on the same topics, at a similar level· Practicing Engineers wishing to learn the state of the art in VLSI Design Automation· Designers of CAD tools for chip design in software houses or large electronics companies. Special Features: · Probably the first book on Design Automation for VLSI Systems which covers all stages of design from layout synthesis through logic synthesis to high-level synthesis· Clear, precise presentation of examples, well illustrated with over 200 figures· Focus on algorithms for VLSI design tools means it will appeal to some Computer Science as well as Electrical Engineering departments About The Book: Enrollments in VLSI design automation courses are not large but it's a very popular elective, especially for those seeking a career in the microelectronics industry. Already the reviewers seem very enthusiastic about the coverage of the book being a better match for their courses than available competitors, because it covers all design phases. It has plenty of worked problems and a large no. of illustrations. It's a good 'list-builder' title that matches our strategy of focusing on topics that lie on the interface between Elec Eng and Computer Science.

The last decade has brought explosive growth in the technology for manufac turing integrated circuits. Integrated circuits with several hundred thousand transistors are now commonplace. This manufacturing capability, combined with the economic benefits of large electronic systems, is forcing a revolution in the design of these systems and providing a challenge to those people in terested in integrated system design. Modern circuits are too complex for an individual to comprehend completely. Managing tremendous complexity and automating the design process have become crucial issues. Two groups are interested in dealing with complexity and in developing algorithms to automate the design process. One group is composed of practi tioners in computer-aided design (CAD) who develop computer programs to aid the circuit-design process. The second group is made up of computer scientists and mathemati'::~l\ns who are interested in the design and analysis of efficient combinatorial aJ::,orithms. These two groups have developed separate bodies of literature and, until recently, have had relatively little interaction. An obstacle to bringing these two groups together is the lack of books that discuss issues of importance to both groups in the same context. There are many instances when a familiarity with the literature of the other group would be beneficial. Some practitioners could use known theoretical results to improve their "cut and try" heuristics. In other cases, theoreticians have published impractical or highly abstracted toy formulations, thinking that the latter are important for circuit layout.

Algorithms for VLSI Physical Design Automation, Second Edition is a core reference text for graduate students and CAD professionals. Based on the very successful First Edition, it provides a comprehensive treatment of the principles and algorithms of VLSI physical design, presenting the concepts and algorithms in an intuitive manner. Each chapter contains 3-4 algorithms that are discussed in detail. Additional algorithms are presented in a somewhat shorter format. References to advanced algorithms are presented at the end of each chapter. Algorithms for VLSI Physical Design Automation covers all aspects of physical design. In 1992, when the First Edition was published, the largest available microprocessor had one million transistors and was fabricated using three metal layers. Now we process with six metal layers, fabricating 15 million transistors on a chip. Designs are moving to the 500-700 MHz frequency goal. These stunning developments have significantly altered the VLSI field: over-the-cell routing and early floorplanning have come to occupy a central place in the physical design flow. This Second Edition introduces a realistic picture to the reader, exposing the concerns facing the VLSI industry, while maintaining the theoretical flavor of the First Edition. New material has been added to all chapters, new sections have been added to most chapters, and a few chapters have been completely rewritten. The textual material is supplemented and clarified by many helpful figures. Audience: An invaluable reference for professionals in layout, design automation and physical design.

This monograph represents a summary of our work in the last two years in applying the method of simulated annealing to the solution of problems that arise in the physical design of VLSI circuits. Our study is experimental in nature, in that we are con cerned with issues such as solution representations, neighborhood structures, cost functions, approximation schemes, and so on, in order to obtain good design results in a reasonable amount of com putation time. We hope that our experiences with the techniques we employed, some of which indeed bear certain similarities for different problems, could be useful as hints and guides for other researchers in applying the method to the solution of other prob lems. Work reported in this monograph was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under grant MIP 87-03273, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation under contract 87-DP- 109, by a grant from the General Electric Company, and by a grant from the Sandia Laboratories.