GLOBALLY OPTIMAL FLOORPLANNING FOR A LAYOUT PROBLEM

In this paper, the floorplanning problem for a layout problem is formu lated as a global optimization problem, The area of each building bloc k is assumed to be fixed, However, its width and height are allowed to vary subject to aspect ratio constraints, Also, a block may be arbitr arily oriented in parallel to the xy orthogonal axes, subject to parti tion constraints with associated adjacency relationships, The objectiv e is to minimize the rectangular area of the entire layout, By formula ting the problem appropriately, it becomes a geometric programming pro blem, Its global minimum can then be found by using standard convex op timization techniques, The problem formulation and its conversion to a convex optimization problem are first illustrated through a simple ex ample. The general procedure is then described and the effectiveness o f the approach demonstrated through numerical examples.