A hierarchical placement method for standard cell layout based on wire length driven clustering

This paper presents a new hierarchical placement method for standard cell layout. The proposed method consists of three phases, clustering of cells, hierarchical global cluster placement, and detailed cell placement. First, a set of clusters is constructed considering their internal structures. When cluster placement is determined based on simulated annealing, the wire length between clusters is estimated based on the structural information of each cluster so as to produce a good cluster placement. In the detailed cell placement phase, cells are placed in rows according to the global cluster placement, and cell placement is iteratively improved to get a final cell placement. Experimental results based on benchmark data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.