Electronic Design Automation

Chapter 11. Placement

About This Chapter

Placement is the process of determining the locations of circuit devices on a die surface. It is an important stage in the VLSI design flow, because it affects routability, performance, heat distribution, and to a less extent, power consumption of a design. Traditionally, it is applied after the logic synthesis stage and before the routing stage. Since the advent of deep submicron process technology around the mid-1990s, interconnect delay, which is largely determined by placement, has become the dominating component of circuit delay. As a result, placement information is essential, even in early design stages, to achieve better circuit performance. In recent years, placement techniques have been integrated ...