An efficient channel routing algorithm to yield an optimal solution

An algorithm known as optimal channel routing (OCR) is proposed which finds an optimal solution for the channel routing problem in VLSI design. The algorithm is an A* algorithm with good heuristics and dominance rules for terminating unnecessary nodes in the searching tree. Experimental results, agreeing with theoretical analysis, show that it behaves quite well in average cases. An optimal solution is obtained for the Deutsch difficult case in 5.5-min-CPU time after the algorithm is implemented in Pascal and run on a VAX 11/750 computer.<
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