| 摘要 |
<p>In an integrated circuit (IC) design, a set of K x N clocked IC devices ('syncs') (11) such as flip-flops and latches are organized into K clusters of N syncs each (50), with each cluster being clocked by a separate clock tree buffer. An improvement to a conventional 'K-center' method for assigning syncs to clusters is disclosed. The improved method, which reduces the separation between syncs within the clusters, initially employs the conventional K-center method to preliminarily assign the K x N syncs to K clusters having N syncs per cluster. The improved method thereafter ascertains boundaries of rectangular areas of the IC occupied by the separate clusters (51). When areas of any group of M > 1 clusters overlap (52), the K-center method is repeated (54) to reassign the set of M x N syncs included in the M overlapping clusters to a new set of M clusters (55). The new set of M clusters are less likely to overlap.</p> |
