A network flow approach for hierarchical tree partitioning

Abstract

Network flow approaches have been used for partitioning with successin the past. However, most of them can not deal with size constraintsdirectly in partitioning. Instead, they incorporate the sizeconstraints implicitly in the objective function. This paper presentsa new network flow approach for partitioning circuits into treehierarchies. We formulate a linear program for the hierarchicaltree partitioning problem by spreading metrics proposed in [Divide-and-conquer approximation algorithms via spreading metrics, Fast approximate graph partitioning algorithms].The size constraints in partitioning can be formulated directly aslinear constraints. Motivated by the duality between the linear programsfor partitioning and network flow problems, we devise aheuristic algorithm based on network flow and spreading metriccomputations. Experimental results demonstrate that the new algorithmcan generate better solutions for MCNC benchmarks.