A VLSI routing algorithm based on improved DPSO

The minimum rectilinear Steiner tree (MRST) problem is an NP-hard problem, which is one of the fundamental issues in electronic design automation (EDA). Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been proved to be an efficient intelligent algorithm for optimization designs. This paper presents an application of discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) for resolving MRST in VLSI routing and proposes a routing algorithm based on improved DPSO (DPSO-RA in short). A novel encoding and several updating operations for DPSO are adopted respectively, according to the characteristics of discrete PSO. The parameters are adjusted to find out an MRST and, consequently, achieve interconnect of all destination nodes in VLSI. The experiments have been carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of DPSO-RA implement to VLSI routing. Moreover, the algorithm also shows good result in routing optimization.