Integrated latch placement and cloning for timing optimization

This article presents an algorithm for integrated timing-driven latch placement and cloning. Given a circuit placement, the proposed algorithm relocates some latches while circuit timing is improved. Some latches are replicated to further improve the timing; the number of replicated latches along with their locations are automatically determined. After latch cloning, each of the replicated latches is set to drive a subset of the fanouts that have been driven by the original single latch. The proposed algorithm is then extended such that relocation and cloning are applied to some latches together with their neighbor logic gates. Experimental results demonstrate that the worst negative slack and the total negative slack are improved by 24% and 59%, respectively, on average of test circuits. The negative impacts on circuit area and power consumption are both marginal, at 0.7% and 1.9% respectively.