Minimum-Via Topological Routing

A new approach to the two-dimensional routing utilizing two layers is proposed. It consists of two major steps, topological routing and geometrical mapping. This paper describes the topological routing algorithm in detail. Based on a circle graph representation of the net intersection information of the routing problem, a maximal set of nets that can be routed without vias are selected. The layer assignments for the selected nets are determined by a global analysis so that the total number of vias needed is minimum. The layer assignment problem turns out to be a maximum-cut problem on an edge-weighted graph and we developed a greedy algorithm for it. According to the layer assignments, the detailed topological routes are then generated.