A new placement algorithm for an interconnect centric design flow

We propose a new force-directed placement method for a cell based interconnect centric design flow. While the standard implementation of force-directed placement uses one attracting and one repelling force, we add a third force to each cell. This additional force represents the timing constraints of the design. For each path a cell belongs to, a force is applied to this cell to influence the length of the path. These forces depend on the timing constraints of the paths and are calculated together with the repelling forces. The force applied to every cell can be attracting, if the path constraint is not fulfilled, or repelling, if the constraint is surpassed. First experimental results show that in comparison with a standard implementation of a force-directed placer, the path length of critical paths is shorter.