A unified approach to multilayer over-the-cell routing

Abstract

Several Ov er-the-Cell (OTC) routing algorithms have been proposed for two and three layer processes. All the existing OTC routers can be used only on the cell models for whic h they were developed for. In this paper, we develop a unied approach t o m ulti-layer routing, motiv ated by o v er-the-cell routing, which can be used for full-custom la youts. Our approac h can also be directly applied to standard cell layouts, irrespective of the cell model used in the design. Our router has been implemen ted in C and tested on industrial benchmarks, suc h as PRIMARY I and PRIMARY I I , for which it obtained channel-less layouts. ST ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference ®