CAF: A Computer-Assisted Floorplanning Tool

CAF (Computer-Assisted VLSI Floorplan) is an interactive program that helps a VLSI designer to get a good floorplan before he starts the actual routing. It includes a graphic output, block and pad geometric manipulation commands, a cost function which is an estimation of total wire length, an automatic pad placement, and traffic analysis. The heuristics used to compute estimated wire lengths and channel congestions are presented and will be shown to be quite accurate. The general use of CAF as a floorplan-building tool is discussed.