Ropper: A placement and routing framework for field-coupled nanotechnologies

Abstract

Field-Coupled Nanocomputing technologies are the subject of extensive research to overcome current CMOS limitations. These technologies include nanomagnetic and quantum structures, each with its design and synchronization challenges. In this scenario clocking schemes are used to ensure circuit synchronization and avoid signal disruptions at the cost of some area overhead. Unfortunatelly, a nanocomputing technology is limited to a small subset of clocking schemes due to its number of clocking phases and signal propagation system, thus, leading to complex design challenges when tackling the placement and routing problem resulting in technology dependant solutions. Our work consists on presenting a novel framework developed by our team that solves these design challenges when using distinct schemes, therefore, avoiding the need to design pre-defined routing algorithms for each one. The framework offers a technology independent solution and provides interfaces for the implementation of efficient and scalable placement strategies, moreover, it has full integration with reference state-of-the-art optimization and synthesis tools.