Vlsi Cells Placement Algorithm, Using The Kohonen Networks

In this study, we study the relative placement of the cells at the integrated circuit drawing time. Studies showed that a particular type of artificial neural network, the KOHONEN network, can be used to position cells of identical size and form on a plan of mass without rails of connections. We presented a first algorithm, with simplifying assumptions, which did not give satisfactory results that pushed us to improve it to become a very powerful algorithm. Then, we approached the phase of the extrapolation of the algorithm, where the cells were of different size. We introduced the concept of terminal where each cell is represented by a set of terminals and where connections were done between these same terminals.