Modeling the Relationship Between FPGA Architecture and Place and Route Runtime

This paper presents an analytical model that relates the architectural parameters of an FPGA to the place-and-route runtimes of the FPGA CAD tools. The authors consider both a simulated annealing based placement algorithm employing a bounding-box wire-length cost function, and a negotiation-based A router. They also show an example application of the model in early architecture evaluation. Since their introduction, Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have continued to grow in both capacity and complexity. This scaling places increasing demands on the Accompanying Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools. Compile times of an entire work day are now common.