Optimal routing algorithms for rectilinear pin clusters in high-density multichip modules

Muhammet Mustafa Ozdal, Martin D. F. Wong, Philip S. Honsinger

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Abstract

As the circuit densities and transistor counts are increasing, the package routing problem is becoming more and more challenging. In this article, we study an important routing problem encountered in typical high-end MCM designs: routing within dense pin clusters. Pin clusters are often formed by pins that belong to the same functional unit or the same data bus, and can become bottlenecks in terms of overall routability. Typically, these clusters have irregular shapes, which can be approximated with rectilinear convex boundaries. Since such boundaries have often irregular shapes, a traditional escape routing algorithm may give unroutable solutions. In this article, we study how the positions of escape terminals on a convex boundary affect the overall routability. For this purpose, we propose a set of necessary and sufficient conditions to model routability outside a rectilinear convex boundary. Given an escape routing solution, we propose an optimal algorithm to select the maximal subset of nets that are routable outside the boundary. After that, we focus on an integrated approach to consider routability constraints (outside the boundary) during the actual escape routing algorithm. Here, we propose an optimal algorithm to find the best escape routing solution that satisfies all routability constraints. Our experiments demonstrate that we can reduce the number of layers by 17% on the average, by using this integrated methodology.

Original languageEnglish
Article number68
Number of pages20
JournalACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems
Volume13
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2008

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

User-Defined Keywords

  • Escape routing
  • Multi-chip modules
  • Network flow

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Optimal routing algorithms for rectilinear pin clusters in high-density multichip modules'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this