An interior point method for solving the global routing problem

A linear programming (LP) model is presented for solving the global routing problem. This method simplifies the initial decomposition approach introduced by T.C. Hu and M.T. Shing (VLSI Layout: Theory and Design, IEEE Press, New York, p.144-52) to solve this problem. The authors reduce the complexity and size of the initial model by finding a smaller set of minimal and near-minimal rectilinear Steiner trees to route individual k-terminal nets. They then use a powerful dual affine interior point technique (Karmarkar algorithm) to solve the resulting (LP) problem. This solution approach is 5-10 times faster than standard Simplex-based approaches for solving LP problems and accelerates as the problem size increases. Numerical results are presented