Credits and Contact Hours

3 credits, 43 hours

Course Instructor Name

Prof. Sami Habib

Textbook

VLSI Physical Design Automation; McGraw Hill, S. Sait and H. Youssef, 1st Edition

Catalog Description

This course will provide an introduction to the tools used to design and analyze digital circuits, including the design of exact and heuristic algorithms that form the basis for VLSI Computer-Aided-Design. Topics covered include partitioning, floor planning, placement, and interconnection of elements - Net selection - Minimal spanning trees - Steiner trees. Layering ordering, pin assignment, and routing algorithms.

Prerequisite

CpE-207, CpE-262

Specific Goals for the Course

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Recognize the physical design process of a digital system.
• Understand graph theory and optimization techniques. (Student outcome: 1)
• Learn the current trends in the physical design of digital system. (Student outcomes: 1, 2)
• Analyze and formulate the partitioning problem, and explore the existing algorithms for solving the partitioning problem. (Student outcomes: 1, 2)
• Analyze and formulate the floor-planning problem, explore the existing algorithms for solving the floor-planning problem. (Student outcomes: 1, 2)
• Analyze and formulate the placement problem, and explore the existing algorithms for solving the placement problem. (Student outcomes: 1, 2)
• Analyze and formulate the routing problem, and explore the existing algorithms for solving the routing problem. (Student outcomes: 1, 2)
• Analyze and design an algorithm for any of the physical design automation, and document the outcomes in a report. (Student outcomes: 2)

Topics to Be Covered

• Introduction to design automation.
• Graph theory and optimization techniques.
• Partitioning problem.
• Floor planning problem.
• Placement problem.
• Routing problem.