947,878 research outputs found
Area-Universal Rectangular Layouts
A rectangular layout is a partition of a rectangle into a finite set of
interior-disjoint rectangles. Rectangular layouts appear in various
applications: as rectangular cartograms in cartography, as floorplans in
building architecture and VLSI design, and as graph drawings. Often areas are
associated with the rectangles of a rectangular layout and it might hence be
desirable if one rectangular layout can represent several area assignments. A
layout is area-universal if any assignment of areas to rectangles can be
realized by a combinatorially equivalent rectangular layout. We identify a
simple necessary and sufficient condition for a rectangular layout to be
area-universal: a rectangular layout is area-universal if and only if it is
one-sided. More generally, given any rectangular layout L and any assignment of
areas to its regions, we show that there can be at most one layout (up to
horizontal and vertical scaling) which is combinatorially equivalent to L and
achieves a given area assignment. We also investigate similar questions for
perimeter assignments. The adjacency requirements for the rectangles of a
rectangular layout can be specified in various ways, most commonly via the dual
graph of the layout. We show how to find an area-universal layout for a given
set of adjacency requirements whenever such a layout exists.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figure
Layout tool Patent
Design and development of layout tool for machine shop use to locate point in precise reference to straight or bowed reference edg
On the suitability and development of layout templates for analog layout reuse and layout-aware synthesis
Accelerating the synthesis of increasingly complex analog integrated circuits is key to bridge the widening gap between what we can integrate and what we can design while meeting ever-tightening time-to-market constraints. It is a well-known fact in the semiconductor industry that such goal can only be attained by means of adequate CAD methodologies, techniques, and accompanying tools. This is particularly important in analog physical synthesis (a.k.a. layout generation), where large sensitivities of the circuit performances to the many subtle details of layout implementation (device matching, loading and coupling effects, reliability, and area features are of utmost importance to analog designers), render complete automation a truly challenging task. To approach the problem, two directions have been traditionally considered, knowledge-based and optimization-based, both with their own pros and cons. Besides, recently reported solutions oriented to speed up the overall design flow by means of reuse-based practices or by cutting off time-consuming, error-prone spins between electrical and layout synthesis (a technique known as layout-aware synthesis), rely on a outstandingly rapid yet efficient layout generation method. This paper analyses the suitability of procedural layout generation based on templates (a knowledge-based approach) by examining the requirements that both layout reuse and layout-aware solutions impose, and how layout templates face them. The ability to capture the know-how of experienced layout designers and the turnaround times for layout instancing are considered main comparative aspects in relation to other layout generation approaches. A discussion on the benefit-cost trade-off of using layout templates is also included. In addition to this analysis, the paper delves deeper into systematic techniques to develop fully reusable layout templates for analog circuits, either for a change of the circuit sizing (i.e., layout retargeting) or a change of the fabrication process (i.e., layout migration). Several examples implemented with the Cadence's Virtuoso tool suite are provided as demonstration of the paper's contributions.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TEC2004-0175
Incremental Grid-like Layout Using Soft and Hard Constraints
We explore various techniques to incorporate grid-like layout conventions
into a force-directed, constraint-based graph layout framework. In doing so we
are able to provide high-quality layout---with predominantly axis-aligned
edges---that is more flexible than previous grid-like layout methods and which
can capture layout conventions in notations such as SBGN (Systems Biology
Graphical Notation). Furthermore, the layout is easily able to respect
user-defined constraints and adapt to interaction in online systems and diagram
editors such as Dunnart.Comment: Accepted to Graph Drawing 201
Speeding up SOR Solvers for Constraint-based GUIs with a Warm-Start Strategy
Many computer programs have graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which need good
layout to make efficient use of the available screen real estate. Most GUIs do
not have a fixed layout, but are resizable and able to adapt themselves.
Constraints are a powerful tool for specifying adaptable GUI layouts: they are
used to specify a layout in a general form, and a constraint solver is used to
find a satisfying concrete layout, e.g.\ for a specific GUI size. The
constraint solver has to calculate a new layout every time a GUI is resized or
changed, so it needs to be efficient to ensure a good user experience. One
approach for constraint solvers is based on the Gauss-Seidel algorithm and
successive over-relaxation (SOR).
Our observation is that a solution after resizing or changing is similar in
structure to a previous solution. Thus, our hypothesis is that we can increase
the computational performance of an SOR-based constraint solver if we reuse the
solution of a previous layout to warm-start the solving of a new layout. In
this paper we report on experiments to test this hypothesis experimentally for
three common use cases: big-step resizing, small-step resizing and constraint
change. In our experiments, we measured the solving time for randomly generated
GUI layout specifications of various sizes. For all three cases we found that
the performance is improved if an existing solution is used as a starting
solution for a new layout
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