C.A.D.: Bookshelf June 18, 8:00am-11:00am

Outline Review: [some of] bookshelf objectives Where we want to go vs what we have now Invited presentations –Herman Schmit, CMU –Paul Villarrubia, IBM Technology Group On-going work Current challenges Future foci ?

Review: [some of] our objectives to provide benchmarking infrastructure relevant for –research –publishing –industrial use offer high-qualify design tools –preferably open-source integrate design tools into tool flows

Where we are now So far, mainly focused on physical design Available now –partitioning, floorplanning and placement benchmarks –floorplanner in Java (no source?) –partitioners (MLPart, hMetis) –placers (Capo, Dragon, Feng Shui) –a global router (Labyrinth) –a DB with LEF/DEF parsers and PERL/Tcl/Python interfaces –scan chain slot with codes –RSMT/RMST and BST slot with codes, etc

Where we are now (cont’d) Know-how regarding integration with Cadence and IBM P&R tools Links to lots of related general-purpose goodies –network-flow solvers –LP and non-linear solvers –etc, etc...

We need Feedback from the industry and use by the industry More integration, esp. with commercial tools Wider participation and adoption Need to refine future focus

Industrial participation/requirements and vertical benchmarking Paul Villarrubia, IBM –"An overview of important features for industrial placement problems" –Issues: relevant benchmarks and industrial adoption Herman Schmit, CMU –"The Vertical Benchmarking Project at CMU" –Issues: relevant benchmarks and design tool integration

On-going work Ivan Kourtev: optimal clock skew scheduling C.-K. Cheng: interconnect delay/timing analysis John Lillis: SITS Integration and comparisons with commercial tools –Cadence Pearl, WarpRoute (UCLA, UMich) e.g., CapoT > Pearl > WarpRoute > Pearl –IBM ChipBench (UMich, IBM) e.g., CapoT > EinsTimer > XRouter > EinsTimer

On-going work (cont’d) “Simple" (but not easy) benchmarks w/o all bells and whistles –solvable with both commercial and academic tools –can give apples-to-apples comparisons –WL-driven and timing-driven placement (UCLA, UMich) –routing benchmarks (UMich)

On-going work (cont’d) New tools –an open-source floorplanner in C++ (UMich) –more versatile open-source routing tools (UMich, SUNY, etc) –UCSD is committed to filling in special engines (clock, power, test, area fill, etc.) that are needed to get reasonably complete layouts

Discussion: current challenges “Separating" global and detail routing (data format, evaluations, at least one engin for each) “Merging" floorplanning and large-scale placement Correlating and anti-correlating –placement wirelength with routability and routed WL –placement wirelength with timing objectvies –formulating and validating "simple"/clean design metrics and optimization objectives for consistent research in multiple groups (e.g., the overflow metric used by Majid Sarrafzadeh's group)

Future foci ? More attention to data-modeling ? Fully open-source CAD design flows? Comprehensiveness Formulations of open problem submitted by the industry ? –remember the "Top-ten list for Physical ISPD ? More formal and automated interface –peer reviews for some of bookshelf content –hit statistics Lobbying for an official status with DAC ?

Future foci(?) cont’d “Same old" –more benchmarks ? –better tools ? –more empirical comparisons ?

Conclusions…