Temperature measurement of simulated annealing placements

One way to reduce the computational requirements of simulated annealing placement algorithms is to use a faster heuristic to replace the early phase of simulated annealing. Such systems need to know the starting temperature for the annealing phase that makes the best use of the existing structure, yet provides an appropriate amount of improvement. A method for determining the temperature of an existing placement from an analysis of the probability distribution of the change in cost function is presented. Using this view, a novel definition of equilibrium is given and the equilibrium temperature of a placement is defined. Temperatures of placements produced both by a simulated annealing and a min-cut placement algorithm are measured.<>