Chau-Chin Huang

Bio: Chau-Chin Huang is an academic researcher from National Taiwan University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Placement & Routing (electronic design automation). The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 13 publications receiving 195 citations. Previous affiliations of Chau-Chin Huang include Synopsys.

NTUplace4h: A Novel Routability-Driven Placement Algorithm for Hierarchical Mixed-Size Circuit Designs

Abstract: A wirelength-driven placer without considering routability could introduce irresolvable routing-congested placements. Therefore, it is desirable to develop an effective routability-driven placer for modern mixed-size designs employing hierarchical methodologies for faster turnaround time. In this paper, we propose a novel routability-driven analytical placement algorithm for hierarchical mixed-size circuit designs. This paper presents a novel design hierarchy identification technique to effectively identify design hierarchies and guide placement for better wirelength and routability. The proposed algorithm optimizes routability from four major aspects: 1) narrow channel handling; 2) pin density; 3) routing overflow optimization; and 4) net congestion optimization. Routability-driven legalization and detailed placement are also proposed to further optimize routing congestion. Compared with the participating teams for the 2012 ICCAD Design Hierarchy Aware Routability-driven Placement Contest, our placer can achieve the best quality (both the average overflow and wirelength) and the best overall score (by additionally considering running time).

NTUplace4dr: A Detailed-Routing-Driven Placer for Mixed-Size Circuit Designs With Technology and Region Constraints

Abstract: A placer without considering modern technology and region constraints could generate solutions with irresolvable detailed-routing (DR) violations or even illegal solutions. This paper presents a high-quality placement algorithm to satisfy technology and region constraints and optimize DR routability with five major techniques: 1) a clustering algorithm followed by two-round quadratic placement to obtain an initial placement satisfying region constraints; 2) a novel density control technique to handle prefixed architectures and minimize global routing congestions; 3) an analytical placement algorithm with new wirelength and density models to consider region constraints; 4) a dynamic penalty increment strategy that reduces wirelength increments during global placement; and 5) a legalization algorithm that preserves the solution quality of global placement while satisfying technology and region constraints. Compared with the winning teams of the ISPD 2015 Blockage-Aware Detailed Routing-Driven Placement Contest and recent works, our placer achieves the best overall score and DR results.

The Influence of Plastic Deformation and Cooling Rates on the Microstructural Constituents of an Ultra-low Carbon Bainitic Steel

Abstract: An experimental ultra-low carbon bainitic steel was prepared to investigate the effect of a prior compressive deformation on the morphology of the transformation procuct during continuous cooling. It is found that at the higher cooling rate the deformed austenite tends to form the non-parallel plates of acicular ferrite, and that at the lower cooling rate the deformed austenite tends to form the parallel plates of bainitic ferrite. The orientation relationships between adjacent grains of acicular ferrite have been studied using the analysis of axis-angle pair. The result shows that the adjacent variants have nearly the same orientation in space, which is analogous to the case in alloy-steel weld metals. Furthermore, based on a thermodynamic analysis, it is indicated that acicular ferrite transformation (from deformed austenite) also exhibits the phenomenon of incomplete reaction, where the reaction ceases well before the residual austenite achieves its equilibrium carbon concentration.

Routability-driven placement for hierarchical mixed-size circuit designs

Abstract: A wirelength-driven placer without considering routability could introduce irresolvable routing-congested placements. Therefore, it is desirable to develop an effective routability-driven placer for modern mixed-size designs employing hierarchical methodologies for faster turnaround time. This paper presents a novel two-stage technique to effectively identify design hierarchies and guide placement for better wirelength and routability. To optimize wirelength and routability simultaneously during placement, a new analytical net-congestion-optimization technique is also proposed. Compared with the participating teams for the 2012 ICCAD Design Hierarchy Aware Routability-driven Placement Contest, our placer can achieve the best quality (both the average overflow and wire-length) and the best overall score (by additionally considering running time).

Clock-aware placement for large-scale heterogeneous FPGAs

Abstract: A modern FPGA often contains an ASIC-like clocking architecture which is crucial to achieve better skew and performance. Existing conventional FPGA placement algorithms seldom consider clocking resources, and thus may lead to clock routing failures. To address the special FPGA clocking architecture, this paper presents a novel clock-aware placement algorithm for large-scale heterogeneous FPGAs. Our algorithm consists of three major stages: (1) a nonlinear global placement framework with clock fence region construction, (2) a clock-aware packing scheme, and (3) clock-aware legalization and detailed placement. We evaluate our results based on the 2017 ISPD Clock-Aware Placement Contest benchmark suite. Compared with the top three winners, the results show that our algorithm achieves the best overall routed wirelength. On average, our algorithm outperforms the top-3 winners by 3.6%, 7.5%, and 12.9% in routed wirelength, respectively.

Congestion phenomena on complex networks.

Abstract: We define a minimal model of traffic flows in complex networks in order to study the trade-off between topological-based and traffic-based routing strategies. The resulting collective behavior is obtained analytically for an ensemble of uncorrelated networks and summarized in a rich phase diagram presenting second-order as well as first-order phase transitions between a free-flow phase and a congested phase. We find that traffic control improves global performance, enlarging the free-flow region in parameter space only in heterogeneous networks. Traffic control introduces nonlinear effects and, beyond a critical strength, may trigger the appearance of a congested phase in a discontinuous manner. The model also reproduces the crossover in the scaling of traffic fluctuations empirically observed on the Internet.

Effect of TiN inclusions on the impact toughness of low-carbon microalloyed steels

Abstract: Microalloying with various elements, including titanium, coupled with thermomechanically controlled processing, has become a major technology for the manufacture of high-quality steel plate. In this research, the influence of TiN inclusions on the impact toughness of low-carbon plate steels microalloyed with titanium, vanadium, and boron was investigated. The three experimental steels had Ti/N ratios of 2.44, 3.5, and 4.2, and all three had a granular bainite microstructure. However, Charpy V-notch testing showed that steel A had very high toughness at both room temperature and −20 °C, whereas steels B and C showed very low toughness at −20 °C and moderate toughness at room temperature. Scanning electron microscope fractography revealed that coarse TiN inclusions had acted as cleavage fracture initiation sites in steels B and C. The effect of Ti and N levels on TiN formation and growth is analyzed using alloy thermodynamics. It is shown that not only is the Ti/N ratio important, but also the product of total Ti and N plays a most important role in TiN formation and growth. It is concluded that the product of the total Ti and N contents should not be greater than the solubility product of TiN at the solidus temperature to prevent the precipitation of TiN particles before solidification. Furthermore, the ratio of Ti to N should also be maintained lower than the stoichiometric ratio of 3.42 to ensure a low coarsening rate for the TiN inclusions during soaking before rolling.

Effect of cooling rate on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Nb-microalloyed steels

Abstract: We describe here the effect of cooling rate on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Nb-microalloyed steels that were processed as structural beams at three different cooling rates. Nb-microalloyed steels exhibited increase in yield strength with increase in cooling rate during processing. However, the increase in the yield strength was not accompanied by loss in toughness. The microstructure at conventional cooling rate, primarily consisted of polygonal ferrite-pearlite microconstituents, while at intermediate cooling rate besides polygonal ferrite and pearlite contained significant fraction of degenerated pearlite and lath-type ferrite. At higher cooling rate, predominantly, lath-type (acicular) or bainitic ferrite was obtained. The precipitation characteristics were similar at the three cooling rates investigated with precipitation occurring at grain boundaries, on dislocations, and in the ferrite matrix. The fine scale (∼8–12 nm) precipitates in the ferrite matrix were MC type of niobium carbides. The microstructural studies suggest that the increase in toughness of Nb-microalloyed steels with increase in cooling rate is related to the change in the microstructure from predominantly ferrite-pearlite to predominantly bainitic ferrite.

Effect of cooling rate on the microstmcture and mechanical properties of Nb-microalloyed steels

Abstract: We describe here the effect of cooling rate on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Nb-microalloyed steels that were processed as structural beams at three different cooling rates. Nb-microalloyed steels exhibited increase in yield strength with increase in cooling rate during processing. However, the increase in the yield strength was not accompanied by loss in toughness. The microstructure at conventional cooling rate, primarily consisted of polygonal ferrite-pearlite microconstituents, while at intermediate cooling rate besides polygonal ferrite and pearlite contained significant fraction of degenerated pearlite and lath-type ferrite. At higher cooling rate, predominantly, lath-type (acicular) or bainitic ferrite was obtained. The precipitation characteristics were similar at the three cooling rates investigated with precipitation occurring at grain boundaries, on dislocations, and in the ferrite matrix. The fine scale (∼8-12nm) precipitates in the ferrite matrix were MC type of niobium carbides. The microstructural studies suggest that the increase in toughness of Nb-microalloyed steels with increase in cooling rate is related to the change in the microstructure from predominantly ferrite-pearlite to predominantly bainitic ferrite.