Fast fuzzy force-directed simulated evolution metaheuristic for multiobjective VLSI cell placement

Abstract EN

VLSI standard cell placement is the process of arranging circuit components (modules) on a silicon layout.

The cell placement problem is a proven NP hard combinatorial optimization problem.

The complexity of this problem increases when multiple optimization objectives are considered simultaneously.

In this paper, a novel technique is presented to address this hard problem, while optimizing multiple objectives.

A major difficulty with such multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems is the existence of a very large solution search space, within which is the desired optimal solution.

Simulated Evolution (SE) a general iterative heuristic is used to traverse the large search space, while fuzzy logic is resorted to assist in multi-criteria decision making and overcome the imprecise nature of design information at placement stage.

New fuzzy aggregation functions are proposed.

SE is hybridized with force directed algorithm to speed-up the search.

The proposed schemes are compared with previously presented SE based heuristics.

The implementations exhibit considerable improvement in terms of both solution quality and runtime.