Tutorial on VLSI partitioning

Abstract

The tutorial introduces the partitioning with applications to VLSI circuit designs. The problem formulations include two-way, multiway, and multi-level partitioning, partitioning with replication, and performance driven partitioning. We depict the models of multiple pin nets for the partitioning processes. To derive the optimum solutions, we describe the branch and bound method and the dynamic programming method for a special case of circuits. We also explain several heuristics including the group migration algorithms, network flow approaches, programming methods, Lagrange multiplier methods, and clustering methods. We conclude the tutorial with research directions.