Channel routing using neural networking

Abstract

The channel routing problem in an integrated circuit layout design involves making interconnections among terminals located on opposite sides of a rectangular channel. This problem has been proven to be NP‐complete and most currently available algorithms are heuristic. This paper proposes a neural network to handle the channel routing problem. Neural networking has been successfully applied to many combinatorial optimization problems. However, applying this technique to the channel routing problem has not ever been reported. This network allows users to preroute any critical nets and then invoke the network to complete the rest. User intervention also can speedup the operation of the router significantly. Typical examples from published literature are taken for experiments. The theoretic lower bounds are achieved in all examples.