A Router for Via Configurable Structured ASIC with Standard Cells and Relocatable IPs

Chiung-Chih Ho,  Hsin-Pei Tsai,  Liang-Chi Lai,  Rung-Bin Lin
Yuan Ze University


Abstract

This article presents a router, called Rover II, for via-configurable structured ASIC with mixed standard cells and relocatable IPs. Rover II extends the work of Rover and incorporates a porting of NTHU-Route 2.0 and NCTU-GR global routers. Experimental results show that Rover II can successfully route a via-configurable structured ASIC with standard cells and IPs under different routing fabrics. In many cases Rover II’s global router in less runtime even achieves smaller wire length and via count than NTHU2.0 and NCTU-GR do. It is also quite robust when routing resources are scarce.