A Parallel Simulated Annealing Algorithm for the Placement of Macro-Cells

A modification of the classical Simulated Annealing algorithm for the macro-cell placement problem is proposed for implementation on multiprocessor systems. The algorithm has been implemented on the Sequent Balance 8000, a multiprocessor system with a shared-memory architecture. Experimental results show that the new algorithm obtains results comparable in quality to those of the single processor version; processor utilization is greater than 80 percent using up to eight processors.