DeFer: deferred decision making enabled fixed-outline floorplanner

In this paper, we present DeFer -- a fast, high-quality and nonstochastic fixed-outline floorplanning algorithm. DeFer generates a non-slicing floorplan by compacting a slicing floorplan. To find a good slicing floorplan, instead of searching through numerous slicing trees by simulated annealing as in traditional approaches, DeFer considers only one single slicing tree. However, we generalize the notion of slicing tree based on the principle of Deferred Decision Making (DDM). When two subfloorplans are combined at each node of the generalized slicing tree, DeFer does not specify their orientations, the left-right/top-bottom order between them, and the slice line direction. DeFer even does not specify the slicing tree structures for small subfloorplans. In other words, we are deferring the decisions on these factors, which are specified arbitrarily at an early step in traditional approaches. Because of DDM, one slicing tree actually corresponds to a huge number of slicing floorplan sol...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: DAC
• Authors: Jackey Z. Yan, Chris Chu
• Keywords: DAC 2008, Design Automation, Floorplan Solutions, Numerous Slicing Trees, Single Slicing Tree