Finding Minimum Width for Single-Layer Channel Routing in Linear Time
Abstract
In recent years, a good deal of attention has been given to the problem of planar or single-layer wire routing for VLSI chips. Especially popular has been river routing in the restricted sense of the term, i.e., the connection of two parallel rows of corresponding points. Other works have considered routing within a rectangle placement and routing within a ring of pads or routing between very general arrangements of modules. This paper concentrates on showing that the minimum separation problem (in the rectilinear wiring model) can be solved in linear time for any single-layer channel routing problem, even with single-sided connections. In the process, this paper clearly provides a linear-time solution to the routability problem which simply asks whether a routing is possible given a fixed vertical separation as well as fixed horizontal positions of the terminals. We also briefly discuss generalization from channels to switchboxes, demonstrating, in particular, a simple routability test for switchboxes. Comparable results could be obtained fairly directly from the work of Cole and Siegel, but this paper gives a simpler exposition by concentrating on the special cases of channels and switchboxes. Detailed but concise pseudocode is provided for the channel separation problem.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA221876
Entities
People
- F. M. Maley
- Ronald I. Greenberg
Organizations
- University of Maryland