Architecture-adaptive routability-driven placement for FPGAs

<p>{C}urrent {FPGA} placement algorithms estimate the routability of a placement using architecture-specific metrics. {T}he shortcoming of using architecture-specific routability estimates is limited adaptability. {A} placement algorithm that is targeted to a class of architecturally similar {FPGA}s may not be easily adapted to other architectures. {T}he subject of this paper is the development of a routability-driven architecture adaptive {FPGA} placement algorithm called {I}ndependence. {T}he core of the {I}ndependence algorithm is a simultaneous place-and-route approach that tightly couples a simulated annealing placement algorithm with an architecture adaptive {FPGA} router ({P}athfinder). {T}he results of our experiments demonstrate {I}ndependence's adaptability to island-style {FPGA}s, a hierarchical {FPGA} architecture ({HSRA}), and a coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture ({R}a{P}i{D}). {T}he quality of the placements produced by {I}ndependence is within 1.2% of the quality of {VPR}s placements. 17% better than the placements produced by {HSRA}'s placer, and within 0.7% of {R}a{P}i{D}'s placer. {F}urther, our results show that {I}ndependence produces clearly superior placements on routing-poor island-style {FPGA} architectures.</p>