X-clock routing based on pattern matching

In this paper, we propose an X-architecture routing algorithm for a clock network. With the definition of 16-pattern X-routing for a pair of points, our algorithm applies these patterns to simplify the selection of merging segments whereas using the DME approach and constructs an X-clock tree with zero skew. An X-flip is employed to shorten the wire length of each pair of points as possible for minimal clock delay. Moreover, a wire sizing is applied to remove snaking wires for saving routing resource. Experimental results on benchmarks compared with other X-routing algorithms show that our improvements in terms of clock delay, wire length, power consumption, and via cost are 16%, 0.8%, 1.5%, and 17.4%, respectively.