Annealing-based heuristics and genetic algorithms for circuit partitioning in parallel test generation

In this paper simulated annealing and genetic algorithms are applied to the graph partitioning problem. These techniques mimic processes in statistical mechanics and biology, respectively, and are the most popular meta-heuristics or general-purpose optimization strategies. A hybrid algorithm for circuit partitioning, which uses tabu search to improve the simulated annealing meta-heuristics, is also proposed and compared with pure tabu search and simulated annealing algorithms, and also with a genetic algorithm. The solutions obtained are compared and evaluated by including the hybrid partitioning algorithm in a parallel test generator which is used to determine the test patterns for the circuits of the frequently used ISCAS benchmark set. 01998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.