A router for via configurable structured ASIC with standard cells and relocatable IPs

This article presents a router, called Rover II, for via-configurable structured ASIC with mixed standard cells and relocatable IPs. Rover II extends the work of Rover and incorporates a porting of NTHU-Route 2.0 and NCTU-GR global routers. Experimental results show that Rover II can successfully route a via-configurable structured ASIC with standard cells and IPs under different routing fabrics. Rover II's global router results in less detailed routing runtime and in many cases even achieves smaller wire length and via count than NTHU-Route 2.0 and NCTU-GR do. It is quite robust when routing resources are scarce.