Routability-Driven Macro Placement Engine for Modern FPGAs With Complex Cascade Shape and Region Constraints

Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) macro placement holds a crucial role within the FPGA physical design flow since it substantially influences the subsequent stages of cell placement and routing. With the increasing number of macros and the complex cascade shape and region constraints imposed by modern FPGAs, the routability and macro placement have become much more challenging. In this paper, we propose an effective and efficient routability-driven macro placement algorithm for modern FPGAs with cascade shape and region constraints. To reserve adequate space for cell placement and guarantee routability, we first develop a routability-driven mixed-size analytical global placement that evenly distributes both macros and cells while considering cascade shape and region constraints. Particularly, the proposed global placement engine integrates a well-trained congestion prediction model, targeting benchmarks with high routing congestion to enhance overall routability. Then, we propose an integer linear programming (ILP)-based cascade shape legalization followed by matching-based macro legalization to remove macro overlaps while satisfying the region constraints. Finally, a routability-driven detailed macro placement is proposed to refine the solution. Compared with the winners of the MLCAD 2023 FPGA macro placement contest and state-of-the-art works, experimental results show that our algorithm achieves the best overall score and routability.