Reliability and routability consideration for MCM placement

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology based on the fuzzy logic approach for the placement of the power dissipating chips on the multichip module substrate. Our methodology considers both thermal distribution and routing length constraints during multichip module placement. In this paper, the main design issue is the coupled placement for reliability and routability. The objective of the coupled placement is to enhance the system performance and reliability by obtaining an optimal cost during multichip module placement. For reliability considerations, the design methodology is addressed on the placement of the power dissipating chips to achieve uniform thermal distribution. The thermal placement analysis is based on the modified fuzzy force-directed placement method. Placement for routability is based on minimizing the total wire length estimated by semi-perimeter method. The placement trade-off between routability and reliability is illustrated by varying a weighting factor. Case studies of the coupled placement are presented. In addition, the thermal distribution of the coupled placement results is simulated with the finite element method.