The Sea-of-Wires Array Synthesis System

The primary intent of this research has been to develop a complete VLSI synthesis system targeting on a unique CMOS design capability, which is derived from a methodology known as Sea-of-Wires Arrays (SWA). The new capability is expected to yield the performance benefits of a custom design while maintaining the quick turnaround and ease of semicustom design for ASIC applications. The research begins by showing that the SWA architecture based on distributed gates is a promising approach to VLSI design. The synthesis and optimization algorithms form the core of the design system whose goal is high-performance SWA design. The innovative table lookup timing analysis approach facilitates a fast and accurate performance evaluation. The effectiveness of the SWA design methodology is finally assessed by evaluations of AHPL Benchmarks with respect to area required and resource utilization.