Clustering algorithms for circuit partitioning and placement problems

The complexity and size of digital circuits have grown exponentially, and today´s circuits can contain millions of logic elements. Clustering algorithms have become popular due to their ability to reduce circuit sizes. Clustering enables circuit layout design problems, such as partitioning and placement to be performed faster and with higher quality. In this paper, current clustering algorithms and the effect of these algorithms on industry test benchmarks are studied. It is revealed that the score-based clustering algorithms are the most successful clustering techniques for circuit layout design and deserve more future research investigations.