Fast Voltage Assignment by Convex-cost Flow

In this work, we cast the continuous voltage assignment problem as a minimum convexcost network flow problem to solve it both optimally and efficiently. Experiments show that, on real circuits, our algorithm is two orders of magnitude (100X) faster than previous work [1]. Another research group independently developed and published the continuous voltage assignment algorithm that we describe [2]. The purpose of this technical report is to present an alternative mathematical derivation and experimental evaluation of the same algorithm. We also present a new and elegant dynamicprogramming discrete voltage assignment heuristic. This work was supported in part by the Semiconductor Research Corporation under award 2007-HJ-1593 and in part by the National Science Foundation under awards CCF-0702761 and CNS-0347941. Stephen P. Tarzia is supported by a Dr. John N. Nicholson fellowship.