Routing resources consumption on M-arch and X-arch

In this paper we study the difference in the usage of routing resources during detailed routing between a router using a Manhattan (M-arch) scheme and another using the X-architecture (X-arch) one. We compare the wirelength, number of vias, and routability between the M-arch and X-arch for two-terminal nets (best case for X-arch). The experiments show that the X-arch produced on average net wirelength that were 13.7% less than the corresponding ones produced by the M-arch. But the X-arch also produced 18% less completed routes and needed 1.62 times as many vias as the M-arch when experiments were done under the condition of preferred direction routing. When a semi-preferred routing condition was chosen the X-arch used 13.5% less wirelength but with an additional cost of 11.5% in unrouted nets and a 1.61 times in the number of vias needed compared to the M-arch router under the same condition.