5,629 research outputs found
A Genetic-Based Approach to Multi-layer Channel Routing In VLSI Design.
As our reliance on electric and electronic devices increases, the need to improve the design and manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs) grows. A microchip can be bettered if it can be made more powerful, smaller, cheaper, and/or more easily manufactured. The physical design phase of chip manufacture offers significant room for improvement. This thesis intends to investigate the detailed channel routing phase of VLSI physical design. Channel routing has been seen to be intractable, in that an optimal solution may require too much time for calculation. Constraints severely limit many algorithms to an approximate solution. The heuristics developed thus far have fallen short of an optimal solution for similar reasons. This thesis presents an evolutionary approach to channel routing. A genetic algorithm makes use of a parent solution to derive next generation solutions in an attempt to overcome local minimums. A three-layer approach is used to evaluate the use of various layering schemes, and also to reduce the number of constraints involved. When multi-terminal nets or multi-nets are involved, a division parameter is used to determine if the best results are generated by treating the multi-net as a whole, or broken down into as small as two-terminal nets. A greedy approach is used to generate the original parents, and a compaction algorithm is used to further improve the output. The results are then represented three-dimensionally by a computer-aided design program, where it can be analyzed for accuracy
PACKER: a switchbox router based on conflict elimination by local transformations
PACKER is an algorithm for switchbox routing, based on a novel approach. In an initial phase, the connectivity of each net is established without taking the other nets into account. In general, this gives rise to conflicts (short circuits). In the second stage, the conflicts are removed iteratively using connectivity-preserving local transformations. They reshape a net by displacing one of its segments without disconnecting it from the net. The transformations are applied in a asystematic way using a scan line technique. The results obtained by PACKER are very positive: it solves all well-known benchmark example
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Automatic synthesis of analog layout : a survey
A review of recent research in the automatic synthesis of physical geometry for analog integrated circuits is presented. On introduction, an explanation of the difficulties involved in analog layout as opposed to digital layout is covered. Review of the literature then follows. Emphasis is placed on the exposition of general methods for addressing problems specific to analog layout, with the details of specific systems only being given when they surve to illustrate these methods well. The conclusion discusses problems remaining and offers a prediction as to how technology will evolve to solve them. It is argued that although progress has been and will continue to be made in the automation of analog IC layout, due to fundamental differences in the nature of analog IC design as opposed to digital design, it should not be expected that the level of automation of the former will reach that of the latter any time soon
Deciding How to Decide: Dynamic Routing in Artificial Neural Networks
We propose and systematically evaluate three strategies for training
dynamically-routed artificial neural networks: graphs of learned
transformations through which different input signals may take different paths.
Though some approaches have advantages over others, the resulting networks are
often qualitatively similar. We find that, in dynamically-routed networks
trained to classify images, layers and branches become specialized to process
distinct categories of images. Additionally, given a fixed computational
budget, dynamically-routed networks tend to perform better than comparable
statically-routed networks.Comment: ICML 2017. Code at https://github.com/MasonMcGill/multipath-nn Video
abstract at https://youtu.be/NHQsDaycwy
Modelling Probabilistic Wireless Networks
We propose a process calculus to model high level wireless systems, where the
topology of a network is described by a digraph. The calculus enjoys features
which are proper of wireless networks, namely broadcast communication and
probabilistic behaviour. We first focus on the problem of composing wireless
networks, then we present a compositional theory based on a probabilistic
generalisation of the well known may-testing and must-testing pre- orders.
Also, we define an extensional semantics for our calculus, which will be used
to define both simulation and deadlock simulation preorders for wireless
networks. We prove that our simulation preorder is sound with respect to the
may-testing preorder; similarly, the deadlock simulation pre- order is sound
with respect to the must-testing preorder, for a large class of networks. We
also provide a counterexample showing that completeness of the simulation
preorder, with respect to the may testing one, does not hold. We conclude the
paper with an application of our theory to probabilistic routing protocols
Symbolic representation of scenarios in Bologna airport on virtual reality concept
This paper is a part of a big Project named Retina Project, which is focused in reduce the workload of an ATCO. It uses the last technological advances as Virtual Reality concept. The work has consisted in studying the different awareness situations that happens daily in Bologna Airport. It has been analysed one scenario with good visibility where the sun predominates and two other scenarios with poor visibility where the rain and the fog dominate. Due to the study of visibility in the three scenarios computed, the conclusion obtained is that the overlay must be shown with a constant dimension regardless the position of the aircraft to be readable by the ATC and also, the frame and the flight strip should be coloured in a showy colour (like red) for a better control by the ATCO
Edge Routing with Ordered Bundles
Edge bundling reduces the visual clutter in a drawing of a graph by uniting
the edges into bundles. We propose a method of edge bundling drawing each edge
of a bundle separately as in metro-maps and call our method ordered bundles. To
produce aesthetically looking edge routes it minimizes a cost function on the
edges. The cost function depends on the ink, required to draw the edges, the
edge lengths, widths and separations. The cost also penalizes for too many
edges passing through narrow channels by using the constrained Delaunay
triangulation. The method avoids unnecessary edge-node and edge-edge crossings.
To draw edges with the minimal number of crossings and separately within the
same bundle we develop an efficient algorithm solving a variant of the
metro-line crossing minimization problem. In general, the method creates clear
and smooth edge routes giving an overview of the global graph structure, while
still drawing each edge separately and thus enabling local analysis
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