VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure - Andrew B. Kahng, Jens Lienig Igor L. Markov, Jin Hu

Physical design of integrated circuits remains one of the most interesting and challenging arenas in the field of Electronic Design Automation. The ability to integrate more and more devices on our silicon chips requires the algorithms to continuously scale up. Nowadays we can integrate 2e9 transistors on a single 45nm-technology chip. This number will continue to scale for the next couple of technology generations, requiring more transistors to be automatically placed on a chip and connected together. In addition, more and more of the delay is contributed by the wires that interconnect the devices on the chip. This has a profound effect on how physical design flows need to be put together. In the 1990s, it was safe to assume that timing goals of the design could be reached once the devices were placed well on the chip. Today, one does not know whether the timing constraints can be satisfied until the final routing has completed.