On driving many long wires in a VLSI layout

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Abstract
It is assumed that long wires represent large capacitive loads, and the effect on the area of a VLSI layout when drivers are introduced along many long wires in the layout is investigated. A layout is presented for which the introduction of standard drivers along long wires squares the area of the layout; it is shown, however, that the increase in area is never greater than the layout's area squared if the driver can be laid out in a square region. This paper also shows an area-time trade-off for the driver of a single long wire of length / by which the area of the driver from Θ( l ), to Θ( l q ), q < l, can be reduced if a delay of Θ( l l-q ) rather than Θ(log l ) can be tolerated. Tight bounds are also obtained on the worst-case area increase in general layouts having these drivers.

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