Net characterization based channel router: FT router

General heuristic algorithms that have been developed for channel routing fail to fully characterize the ´landscape´ of nets to be routed and thus may yield suboptimal solutions. The authors´ track-assignment type routing algorithm makes use of an extensive set of net characteristics/relationships to perform a more sophisticated search for an optimal routing layout than the less other channel routers. When a routing problem is encountered, the algorithm resorts to subdoglegging, to a single-layer segment, or to local backtracking when a solution cannot be found. The algorithm can obtain optimal solutions for all the published channel routing examples. With some multiple-cycle examples, it performs better than the public-domain channel routers such as YACR2, Chameleon, or Mighty.<>