An efficient multi-way algorithm for balanced partitioning of VLSI circuits

This paper presents an efficient algorithm for multi-way balanced partitioning of VLSI circuits. The proposed algorithm is still based on the widely used net-cut model, but its novelty is the potential gain function into the net-cut cost function to relax the single-cell-move constraint (as commonly encountered in the Kernighan-Lin algorithm) for balanced partitioning. This feature permits to move a group of cells (referred to as a Multi-Cell-Move strategy) for partitioning a circuit, while reducing its sensitivity to size constraint. The new multi-way partitioning algorithm is fully analyzed; expressions for the potential gain function (with respect to the multi-move operation) and the cost (for the min-cut objective function) are presented. The time complexity of the proposed partitioning algorithm is O(P×k² log ₂ (k)), where k is the number of blocks and P is the number of pins. Simulation results are presented and a remarkable improvement is achieved compared with existing algorithms, such as the k-Dual Part algorithm