EE382V Fall 2006

VLSI Physical Design Automation

Lecture 18. Global Routing (II)

Prof. David Pan

dpan@ece.utexas.edu
Office: ACES 5.434

Minsik Cho
thyeros@cerc.utexas.edu

10/22/08 1
 Global Routing Approaches

• Sequential Approach (Rip-up and Re-route)

– Maze Routing
– Line probing
– Shortest Path Based Algorithms
– Steiner Tree Based Algorithms
• Concurrent Approach
– Integer Programming

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 Sequential Approach

Algorithm:
1. Graph modeling of the routing regions
2. For each net k:
We can use different
2.1 Find a route r for net k on the graph.
methods to do this.
2.2 For each edge e in r:
2.2.1 capacity(e) = capacity(e) - 1
2.2.2 if capacity(e) < 0 then cost(e) = α × cost(e)

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Maze Routing for Multi-Terminal Nets

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Maze Routing on Weighted Graph

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Example of Weighted Graph

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Mikami & Tabuchi’s Algorithm

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 Line Probing
• Keep two lists of line segments, slist and tlist, for the
source and the target respectively.
• If a line segment from slist intersects with one from tlist, a
route is found; else, new line segments are generated
from the escape points.

S
Intersection
slist T

tlist 8
 Line Probing
• We can use all the grid vertices on the line segments as
escape points:

1 0 1
1
1 Escape point
S
0 Iteration number
1 1
T 0
1
1 1
1 1
1 0 1
• Always find a path but may not be optimal.
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Hightower’s Algorithm

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 Line Probing
• We can pick just one escape point from each line
segment.
0 1

0 S
Iteration number
T 0

1 Escape point
1 0
• May fail to find a path even if one exists.
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12
Comparison of Algorithms

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 BFS based Maze Routing (A*)
• Need to search whole space?
– Guide the search to the goal explicitly
• A* search is faster if you need “good path”, not “perfect
path”
– Use priority queue
– C(n) = F(n)+H(n)
• F(n) is a computed cost from source to current location.
• H(n) is a predicted cost from current location to target.
• If H(n)=0, it becomes maze routing!
– Optimal (shortest path) when H(n) <= H’(n) (no overestimation)
• H’(n) is the exact cost
• H(n)=0 never overestimates!

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Maze vs A* routing (I)

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Maze vs A* routing (II)

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 Shortest Path Based Algorithms
• For 2-terminal nets only.
• Use Dijkstra’s algorithm to find the shortest path
between the source s and the sink t of a net.
• Different from Maze Routing:
– The graph need not be a rectangular grid.
– The edges need not be of unit length.

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 Dijkstra’s Shortest Path Algorithm

• Label of vertices = Shortest distance from S.

• Let P be the set of permanently labeled vertices.

• Initially,
– P = Empty Set.
– Label of S = 0, Label of all other vertices = infinity.
• While (T is not in P) do
– Pick the vertex v with the min. label among all vertices not in P.
– Add v to P.
– Update the label for all neighbours of v.

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 Dijkstra’s Algorithm: Example
P (Permanently Labeled) Min. Label Vertex
B 1 T B 1 T B 1 T
10 8 14
8

8
10 10 10
2 3 94 6 2 3 94 6 2 3 94 6
0 0 0
S 5 7 S 5 7 S 5 7
5 2 5 2 7
8

8
2
A C A C A C

B 1 T B 1 T B 1 T
10
8 9 10
8 9 10
8 13
2 3 94 6 2 3 94 6 2 3 94 6
0 0 0
S 5 7 S 5 7 S 5 7
5 2 7 5 2 7 5 2 7
A C A C A C
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 Steiner Tree Based Algorithms
• For multi-terminal nets.
• Find Steiner tree instead of shortest path.
• Construct a Steiner tree from the minimum spanning
trees (MST)

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 Net Ordering
• In sequential approach, we need some net ordering.
• A bad net ordering will increase the total wire length,
and may even prevent com-pletion of routing for some
circuits which are indeed routable.

A B A B

B B
B first A A first
A (Good order) (Bad order)

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 Criteria for Net Ordering

• Criticality of net - critical nets first.

• Estimated wire length - short nets first since they are
less flexible.
• Consider bounding rectangles (BR):

A
B Which one should be routed first
B and why? (Note that this rule of
A thumb is not always applicable.)
B is in A’s BR

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Net Ordering (cont’d)

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 Rip-Up and Re-route
• It is impossible to get the optimal net ordering.
• If some nets are failed to be routed, the rip-up and re-
route technique can be applied:

Cannot route C So rip-up B Finally route B.

and route C first.

A A A A A A

B B B B B B
C C C C C C
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 Concurrent Approach
• Consider all the nets simultaneously.
• Formulate as an integer program.
• Given:

Nets Set of possible routing trees

net 1 T11, T12, ...... , T1k1

: :
: :
net n Tn1, Tn2, ... , Tnkn

Lij = Total wire length of Tij

Ce = Capacity of edge e
• Determine variable xij s.t. xij = 1 if Tij is used
xij = 0 otherwise.

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Integer Program Formulation

n ki

Min. ∑∑ L × x
i =1 j =1
ij ij

∑
ki
s.t. j =1
xij
= 1 for all i = 1,  , n

∑ i , j s.t. e∈Tij
xij ≤ Ce for all edge e
xij = 0 or 1 ∀i, j

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 Concurrent Approach: Example
b Possible trees:
1 1 1,2 1,3
2 3 net 1: 2 3 3
3 1 a d
2 2 2,3 1,2 net 2: 2 3 3
c
Ca= Cb= Cc= Cd= 2 net 3: 2 2

Solution Min. 2 x11 + 3 x12 + 3 x13 + 2 x21 + 3 x22 + 3 x23 + 2 x31 + 2 x32

1  x11 + x12 + x13 = 1;

1  x + x + x = 1;
2 3  21 22 23 What are the constraints
3 1 s.t.  for edge capacity?
x
 31 32+ x = 1;
2 2
 xij = 0 or 1 ∀i, j; x12 + x13 + x21 + x23 + x31 < Ca
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 Integer Programming Approach
• Standard techniques to solve IP.
• No net ordering. Give global optimum.
• Can be extremely slow, especially for large problems.
• To make it faster, a fewer choices of routing trees for
each net can be used. May make the problem
infeasible or give a bad solution.
• Determining a good set of choices of routing trees is a
hard problem by itself.

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Hierarchical Approach to Speed Up Integer
Programming Formulation
For Global Routing

M. Burstein and R. Pelavin,

“Hierarchical Wire Routing”,
IEEE TCAD, vol. CAD-2,
pages 223-234, Oct. 1983.

10/22/08 29
 Hierarchical Approach
• Large Integer Programs are difficult to solve.
• Hierarchical Approach reduces global routing to routing
problems on a 2x2 grid.
• Decompose recursively in a top-down fashion.
• Those 2x2 routing problems can be solved optimally by
integer programming formulation.

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 Hierachical Approach: Example
• Solving a 2xn routing problem hierarchically.

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Solution:
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 Types of 2x2 Routing Problems
Type 1 Type 7

Type 2 Type 8

Type 3 Type 9

Type 4 Type 10

Type 5 Type 11

Type 6
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 Objective Function of 2x2 Routing
Possible Routing Trees:
T11, T12, T21, T22,....., T11,1,..., T11,4
# of nets of each type: n1, ..., n11
Determine xij: # of type-i nets using Tij for routing.
yi: # of type-i nets that fails to route.
yi + ∑ j xij = ni i = 1,  ,11
Want to minimize ∑i =1 yi .
11

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 Constraints of 2x2 Routing
Constraints on Edge Capacity:
Cb
Bab Bbc ∑i, j s.t. a∈T ij
xij ≤ Ca

Ca a
b
c Cc
∑i, j s.t. b∈T ij
xij ≤ Cb
d ∑i, j s.t. c∈T ij
xij ≤ Cc
Bda
Cd
Bcd
∑i, j s.t. d∈T ij
xij ≤ Cd

Constraints on # of Bends in a Region:

∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region ab
xij ≤ Bab
∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region bc
xij ≤ Bbc
∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region cd
xij ≤ Bcd
∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region da
xij ≤ Bda
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 Pop Quiz
• If you two nets, one with 2 pins,
the other with 4 pins with a zero C=1 C=0
capacity edge
– What is going to be the result?

yi + ∑ j xij = ni i = 1,  ,11 Type 1

Want to minimize ∑i =1 yi .
11

Type 11

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 ILP Formulation of 2x2 Routing
Min. ∑i =1 yi
11

s.t. yi + ∑ j xij = ni i = 1,  ,11

xij ≥ 0, yi ≥ 0 ∀i, j
∑i, j s.t. a∈T
ij
xij ≤ Ca ∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region ab
xij ≤ Bab

∑i, j s.t. b∈T

ij
xij ≤ Cb ∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region bc
xij ≤ Bbc

∑i, j s.t. c∈T

ij
xij ≤ Cc ∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region cd
xij ≤ Bcd

∑i, j s.t. d∈Tij

xij ≤ Cd ∑i, j s.t. T
ij has a bend in region da
xij ≤ Bda

• Only 39 variables (28 xij and 11 yi) and

19 constraints (plus 38 non-negative constrains).
• Problems of this size are usually not too difficult to solve.

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