VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
1
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
Charles J. Alpert, Zhuo Li, Michael D. Moffitt, Gi-Joon Nam, Jarrod A. Roy,
Gustavo Tellez
Presented by Zhicheng Wei
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
2
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUNDS
 COMMON CONGESTION METRICS
 GLOBAL ROUTING CONSTRAINTS
 DETAILED ROUTING CONSTRAINTS
 PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES
 LOGIC SYNTHESIS TECHNIQUES
 REPEATER INSERTION TECHNIQUES
 CONCLUSION
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
3
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
 INTRODUCTION
 Modern technology requires complex wire spacing rules and constraints
 High performance routing requires multiple wire width (even same layer)
 Local problems including via spacing rules, switchbox inefficiency, intra-gcell
routing
All of these problems make routing hard to model and lead to huge congestion
issues!
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
4
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
 BACKGROUNDS
 Routing problems should be considered in 3D instead of 2D
 Meet congestion constraints during global routing
 Try to satisfy capacity in detailed routing with a given global routing solution
 Over-the-cell routing breaks traditional channel/switchbox model
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
5
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
 COMMON CONGESTION METRICS
 Total Overflow
 Average worst X%
average worst 20% routing edges below 80% is routable
 Total routed wirelength (RWL)
significantly above Steiner tree may indicate routing difficulties
 Number of scenic nets
wirlelength/minimum Steiner tree length
ratio > 1.3 is generally considered scenic
 Number of nets over X%
nets passing through gcells whose congestion is over X%
 Number of violations
 Routing runtimes
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
6
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
 COMMON CONGESTION METRICS
 Total Overflow
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
7
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
GLOBAL ROUTING CONSTRAINTS
Choice of gcell size
 gcell size too small
large global routing space and takes more time to route
 gcell size too large
not able to expose congestion problems and shift burden to detail routing
Handling scenic nets
go very scenic = bad timing performance
impose scenic constrains on the router
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
8
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
DETAILED ROUTING CONSTRAINTS
Prediction failure in global routing
hot sports predicted by global routing may not be open and shorts in
detailed routing
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
9
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
DETAILED ROUTING CONSTRAINTS
Pin access problem
certain configurations make accessing pin from higher metal layer
impossible
Via modeling challenge
Vias do not scale as well as device at each technology node
Vias serve as routing blockages which impact local congestion
Via modeling becomes non-trivial, esp with different metal pitches
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
10
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES
Congestion caused by time-driven placement
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
11
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES
Modern placement focus on minimization of HPWL
Uniform placement does not always work!
Uniform placement does not mean uniform wire spreading!
Consider congestion-driven placement
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
12
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES
Congestion Reduction by Iterated Spreading Placement (CRISP)
Selectively spreading the placement in regions with high global congestion
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
13
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
LOGIC SYNTHESIS TECHNIQUES
Logic synthesis generally ignores placement information
Create structures good for timing closure but bad for routing
Logic synthesis transforms to alleviate local congestions
identify logic fan-in tree which is physically wirelength inefficient
rebuild logic tree and place new synthesized gates
wirelength is minimized and congestion alleviated
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
14
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
REPEATER INSERTION TECHNIQUES
Repeaters are inserted to meet timing constraints
Divide long wires into small segments
Layer assignment
Obtain enormous speed advantage using thick metal for most critical
paths
Routing congestions caused
Corona effect (congestion around corner of blockages)
Aggressive layer promotion (fewer resources at higher metal layer)
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
15
Aggressive Layer Promotion
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
16
Corona Effect
VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing
©
KLMH
Lienig
17
What Makes a Design Difficult to Route
CONCLUSION
 Physical synthesis issues in placement, global/detail routing, logic
synthesis
 Advanced technologies require more complicated modeling plan
 Capture more detailed routing effects in global routing stage
 Estimation techniques need to be fast to optimize routing fast

design-difficult-to-route(design-difficult-to-route).ppt

  • 1.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 1 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route Charles J. Alpert, Zhuo Li, Michael D. Moffitt, Gi-Joon Nam, Jarrod A. Roy, Gustavo Tellez Presented by Zhicheng Wei
  • 2.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 2 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route  INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUNDS  COMMON CONGESTION METRICS  GLOBAL ROUTING CONSTRAINTS  DETAILED ROUTING CONSTRAINTS  PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES  LOGIC SYNTHESIS TECHNIQUES  REPEATER INSERTION TECHNIQUES  CONCLUSION
  • 3.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 3 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route  INTRODUCTION  Modern technology requires complex wire spacing rules and constraints  High performance routing requires multiple wire width (even same layer)  Local problems including via spacing rules, switchbox inefficiency, intra-gcell routing All of these problems make routing hard to model and lead to huge congestion issues!
  • 4.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 4 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route  BACKGROUNDS  Routing problems should be considered in 3D instead of 2D  Meet congestion constraints during global routing  Try to satisfy capacity in detailed routing with a given global routing solution  Over-the-cell routing breaks traditional channel/switchbox model
  • 5.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 5 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route  COMMON CONGESTION METRICS  Total Overflow  Average worst X% average worst 20% routing edges below 80% is routable  Total routed wirelength (RWL) significantly above Steiner tree may indicate routing difficulties  Number of scenic nets wirlelength/minimum Steiner tree length ratio > 1.3 is generally considered scenic  Number of nets over X% nets passing through gcells whose congestion is over X%  Number of violations  Routing runtimes
  • 6.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 6 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route  COMMON CONGESTION METRICS  Total Overflow
  • 7.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 7 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route GLOBAL ROUTING CONSTRAINTS Choice of gcell size  gcell size too small large global routing space and takes more time to route  gcell size too large not able to expose congestion problems and shift burden to detail routing Handling scenic nets go very scenic = bad timing performance impose scenic constrains on the router
  • 8.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 8 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route DETAILED ROUTING CONSTRAINTS Prediction failure in global routing hot sports predicted by global routing may not be open and shorts in detailed routing
  • 9.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 9 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route DETAILED ROUTING CONSTRAINTS Pin access problem certain configurations make accessing pin from higher metal layer impossible Via modeling challenge Vias do not scale as well as device at each technology node Vias serve as routing blockages which impact local congestion Via modeling becomes non-trivial, esp with different metal pitches
  • 10.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 10 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES Congestion caused by time-driven placement
  • 11.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 11 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES Modern placement focus on minimization of HPWL Uniform placement does not always work! Uniform placement does not mean uniform wire spreading! Consider congestion-driven placement
  • 12.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 12 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route PLACEMENT TECHNIQUES Congestion Reduction by Iterated Spreading Placement (CRISP) Selectively spreading the placement in regions with high global congestion
  • 13.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 13 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route LOGIC SYNTHESIS TECHNIQUES Logic synthesis generally ignores placement information Create structures good for timing closure but bad for routing Logic synthesis transforms to alleviate local congestions identify logic fan-in tree which is physically wirelength inefficient rebuild logic tree and place new synthesized gates wirelength is minimized and congestion alleviated
  • 14.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 14 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route REPEATER INSERTION TECHNIQUES Repeaters are inserted to meet timing constraints Divide long wires into small segments Layer assignment Obtain enormous speed advantage using thick metal for most critical paths Routing congestions caused Corona effect (congestion around corner of blockages) Aggressive layer promotion (fewer resources at higher metal layer)
  • 15.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig What Makes a Design Difficult to Route 15 Aggressive Layer Promotion
  • 16.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig What Makes a Design Difficult to Route 16 Corona Effect
  • 17.
    VLSI Physical Design:From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure Chapter 6: Detailed Routing © KLMH Lienig 17 What Makes a Design Difficult to Route CONCLUSION  Physical synthesis issues in placement, global/detail routing, logic synthesis  Advanced technologies require more complicated modeling plan  Capture more detailed routing effects in global routing stage  Estimation techniques need to be fast to optimize routing fast