Track Assignment Using Gradient Indication and Simulated Annealing

Track assignment has become a crucial step within the physical design flow. In this work, we proposed a novel track assignment approach using gradients estimation and simulated annealing. Specifically, we formulate the overlap cost function and derive the gradients to estimate the quality of candidate positions for iroutes movement. A simulated annealer is devised to consume the gradients indication and perturb the track assignment solution from the global perspective. Experimental results show 5.15% lower overlap cost in average of all 10 benchmarks from DAC 2012 Routability-Driven Placement Contest, compared to the state-of-the-art approach NTA [1].