An Industrial World Channel Router for Non-Rectangular Channels

In this paper, we discuss a number of important issues that we faced designing a router in the industrial environment. We present a channel router that addresses these issues. It can route rectilinear channels with variable channel height, and it can handle channels with pre-routed buses. Pins can come in from all four sides of the channel and the sequence of the side pins is maintained after routing. Usually, it uses two routing layers and it can use a third routing layer if needed. The basic algorithm is simple but effective to give good results. It routed the Deutsch Difficult Example in density. In routing uneven channels, it routed them with the number of tracks smaller than the channel density. The number of vias used and the total wire length are comparable with the best results in the literature. The router is fully functional and has been used in routing a number of real world integrated circuits.