VPR Routing Pattern Finder Version 1.2

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PDF version of this file can be found here.

Download VPR Pattern Finder 1.2 for Windows.

Download VPR Pattern Finder 1.2 for RedHat Linux.

The VPR benchmarks can be downloaded from here:

• MCNC-route-files.zip. 
• projects/route-files-virtex.gz. 
• route-file-no-timing-bend-0.gz. 
• route-file-no-timing-bend-1.gz. 

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Old Versions: 

Version 1.1 can be downloaded at here (for Windows) and here (for Linux).

Version 1.0 can be downloaded at here.

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Author: Gang Wang, Ryan Kastner

            Express Lab, ECE Department

            University of California, Santa Barbara

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Purpose: VPR Routing Pattern Finder is a graphics tool for:

• Visualizing the VPR routing results;
• Find interesting routing patterns;

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What¡¯s New:

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Version 1.2:

<![if !supportLists]>¡¤         <![endif]>Support reporting track segment information in the switch box report window.

<![if !supportLists]>¡¤         <![endif]>Added the switch box button and entry boxes in the GUI to support numerical identification of switch box report.

Version 1.1.1:

<![if !supportLists]>¡¤         <![endif]>Re-implemented the parsing algorithm to introduce a uniformed model for handling both track based and segment based routing results.

<![if !supportLists]>¡¤         <![endif]>Completely rewrote the parsing module to better mix script language and C code. The new implementation achieves more 6 times speedup compared with version 1.0. Other operations of the program shall benefit from this too.  

<![if !supportLists]>¡¤         <![endif]>Bug fixes. Version 1.0 suffers from incomplete cleaning up between parsing sessions. In other words, if we parse file A, then file B, then file A again, the two parsing results for file A might be different. This problem is fixed in version 1.1.

Version 1.0.5:

<![if !supportLists]>¡¤         <![endif]>New ¡°statistics¡± report button;

<![if !supportLists]>¡¤         <![endif]>Now you can click each switch box to view the detailed information related with that box; 

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Usage:

Currently, Pattern Finder is available for both Microsoft Windows and Linux (RedHat) platform. It is a green application, i.e. there is no installation involved. Just get the zip file, unzip it to anywhere you like, and you are done.

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Figure 1 VPR Routing Pattern Finder Window

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A Typical Pattern Finder window is shown in Figure 1. It is composed of two panes, the control pane (left) and the display pane (right).

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Legends:

• Blue boxes: input pads;
• White boxes: CLBs
• Yellow boxes: switch boxes
• Line: Channels/Connections used
• Path: a complete route from a source to a sink.

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Controls:

1. Load File button: Upon start, the display pane of Pattern Finder is empty. You first need to load a VPR routing result file into the program by clicking this button. Follow the on screen dialogue window to find the file you want. Then click ¡°open¡±. The file will be loaded, parsed, and analyzed. If there file is big, it might take a while so be patient.
2. Draw Net button: When this button is clicked, Pattern Finder will draw the corresponding network in the display pane. The net work index number is what you have typed in the entry box following this button. This number is typically the number following the NET keyword in the VPR routing result file. If the entry has a value ¡°all¡±,  Pattern Finder will draw all the nets in the file.
3. Stop button: Sometimes the drawing process can take quite a while for large routing results, especially for the draw ¡°all¡± option. You can click this button to stop it.
4. Draw Path button: When this button is clicked, Pattern Finder will try to draw the j-th path in the i-th net. The first entry box gives the net index (i) and the second for path index (j).
5. Find Shape button: This control tries to find all the connections (switch boxes) of a given net for the asked connection pattern. The first entry is the symbol for the connection pattern and the second entry is the net index; See Table 1 to look up the symbol/pattern pairs.

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Table 1 Shape Symbols

6. Postscript button: allows you to capture the display pane to a postscript file;
7. Clear All button: Click this button when you want to clear all the path items in the display. All internal data structures are intact so you don¡¯t need to re-parse the file.
8. Zoom In/Out buttons: These button shrink and expand the view of FPGA in the display pane. These are important for viewing large routing results. The origin point for these operations is the upper left corner. The ratio of zoom operation is currently fix, 0.8 for zoom out and 1.25 for zoom in.
9. Statistics Button: invokes the statistic report window (as shown below). It reports the frequency of each pattern, together with the statistics of different sizes for the same patterns. The size reported here is the minimum symmetric expansion on all the orientations for the switch box. For example, if the switch box has a ¡°T¡± pattern of size 3, that means we can expand left, right and down for at least 3 channels. This expansion is terminated when on the corresponding direction, we have either of the following situations:
   1.  The path makes a turn; For example, turns to vertical from horizontal;
   2.  Or, the path ends;

The content of this report window can be saved to a file by clicking the ¡°Save As¡± button.

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Figure 2 Statistics Report Window

10. About button: pops up an About window.
11. Clicking left button on any switch box will bring up a detailed report window for the corresponding switch box. It will report the following:
    1. For each track of the switch box, for which paths and nets the switch box is used;
    2. The pattern of the switch box for each net that it is involved.

Besides, a list of radio button is shown in the report window, each of which is associated with a network in which the switch box is used. By making a choice and then close the window, Pattern Finder will redraw that network. This makes it easier to perform certain inspections. The switch box under focus will be colored blue.

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Figure 3 Switch Box Info window

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Color Changes:

1. When draw a net or a path, the parts of the last drawing will be colored red. Meanwhile, all the parts/lines that have been previously drawn by Pattern Finder will turn black.
2. Similarly, the switch boxes identified by the ¡°Find Shape¡± control will be colored green while all the previously identified switch boxes will return yellow.  

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Disclaimers:

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1. You may use this Package for non-commercial purposes without charge. You CANNOT use this Package for commercial purposes without written permission from the copyright holders.

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2. You may make and give away verbatim copies of this Package for personal use, or for use within your organization, provided that you duplicate all of the original copyright notices and associated disclaimers.  You may not distribute copies of this Package, or copies of packages derived from this Package, to others outside your organization without specific prior written permission from the copyright holders.

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3. THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

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Copyright©2004 GaGang Wang, Ryan Kastner.

All rights reserved.