Contributions to and changes in MetaPlacer-Capo9.0

   David Papa      - improved DEF output
   David Papa      - port to g++ 3.4 
   David Papa      - support for installation on Windows & MSVC port
   David Papa      - reporting of %runtime used by various stages of Capo
   David Papa      - most of Capo output messages can now be suppressed
   & Jarrod Roy           with -verb 0_0_0

   David Papa      - improvements to the gnuplot interface
   & Jarrod Roy      (more accurate pictures, more compact files)
   & Saurabh Adya

   David Papa      - feature benchmarks are included with MetaPlacer
   David Papa      - bugfixes to the MLPart partitioner
   & Saurabh Adya    and fine-tuning of Capo on feature benchmarks

   David Papa      - improved support for net-weights in Capo
   & Saurabh Adya
   David Papa      - (bridge between OA 2.2 and Capo's internal
                     data structures --- will be released separately)

   Luke Frankart   - latest Cadence LEF/DEF parsers are now included
   Luke Frankart   - limited support for blockages in both parsers
   Luke Frankart   - support for reading multiple LEF files

   Michael Wrighton- bugfixes and improvements to partitioning packages
                   - improvements to the Windows build infrastructure

   Jarrod Roy      - improved memory reporting and various memory savings
   Jarrod Roy      - improved overlap removers for cells and macros
   Jarrod Roy      - improved detail placement & rewrite of the FixOr package
   Jarrod Roy      - support for plotting routes in DB
   Jarrod Roy      - improvements to small splitters in Capo,
                     that improve wirelength and decrease overlaps
   Jarrod Roy      - changes to how and when Vcycling is done
   Jarrod Roy      - improvements to large splitters that improve
                     wirelength and runtime, particularly during feedback;
   Jarrod Roy      - "pause-button interface" for Capo

   Sherief Reda    - accelerated feedback is now default
   & Saurabh Adya    (see -noFeedback and -feedback switches)
   & Jarrod Roy

   Hayward Chan    - bugfixes & improvements to the Parquet floorplanner;
   & Saurabh Adya    more efficient Capo/Parquet interface

   Saurabh Adya    - support for mixed-size placement
   Saurabh Adya    - support for net-weights in Parquet
   Saurabh Adya    - improvements to hypergraph clustering
   Saurabh Adya    - bugfixes & improvements in parsers
   Saurabh Adya    - improvements to whitespace distribution
                     (see the -uniformWS command-line option)

   For further details, contact Igor Markov  <imarkov@eecs.umich.edu>

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