A floorplanning system for tape automated bonding packages

Tape automated bonding (TAB) technology offers an ideal choice for packaging high pin count ICs. However, the manual routing for TAB is tedious and takes weeks to complete. The authors have developed a high performance router which completes routing in a few seconds on a PC-486. Compared to manual work, an average of 19% area reduction has been achieved. Based on the router, a floorplanning system which can be used in the early package design phase was built. A total of 30% area improvement has been shown by using this system. The system design flow and experimental results are described in detail.<<ETX>>