CS 258F Winter 2006

Instructor: Jason Cong

Homework 1
(Due Monday Jan. 30, 2006)

Reading Assignment
• Read Chapters 1 and 3 of the classnotes, and all papers covered in the class.

Homework Problems
1. Suppose that a netlist N of n nodes and m nets. Given a linear ordering L of the nodes N, a K-way
partition P of N based on L is obtained by dividing L into K disjoint sublists L1, L2, …, LK, each is non-
empty, such that each partition Pi in P corresponds to a sublist Li of L (i.e. Pi includes all the nodes in
Li). The cutsize of P is defined to be the number of nets that have nodes in two or more partitions in P.
Please answer the following two questions.
a) Given a linear ordering L of the nodes of N, compute an optimal 3-way partition P of N based on L
such that the total cutsize of P is minimum. Please analyze the complexity of your algorithm.
b) Given a linear ordering L of the nodes of N, compute an optimal K-way partition P of N based on
L such that the total cutsize of P is minimum (K ≥ 2). Please analyze the complexity of your
algorithm.

2. Suppose that D and A are the degree matrix and the adjacency matrix of graph G, respectively. Prove
that λ/n is a lower bound of the minimum ratio-cut cost in graph G, where n is the number of vertices
in G and λ is the second smallest eigenvalue of the Laplacian matrix D – A. (Hint: Consider using the
Courant-Fischer Minimax Principle given in the classnotes. But be careful about its assumptions.
Many students in the past failed on this problem.)

3. Review the max-flow algorithm for computing min-cuts in a graph, and answer the following
questions:
a) What are the difficulties in applying the min-cut algorithm to circuit partitioning?
b) Given a circuit netlist N with two distinguished nodes s and t, present an algorithm to transform it
into a directed graph G (possibly with additional nodes) such that any cut separating s and t with a
minimum net cutsize in N corresponds to a min-cut separating s and t in G. (Hint: If you cannot
come up with a solution after considerable effort, you may refer to the paper by Yang and Wang in
ICCAD’94])

4. Given a combinational circuit G consisting of simple logic gates, assume that each gate has delay di,
inter-cluster delay is 1 while intra-cluster delay is 0, please extend Lawler’s algorithm to construct a
delay-optimal clustering solution of G such that each cluster has no more than K gates. Please analyze
the complexity of your algorithm.

5. The FirstChoice clustering algorithm used in hMetis multilevel partitioning algorithm is fairly simple.
Do you have any suggestion for improvement?

6. (Bonus problem) Given a combinational circuit G consisting of simple logic gates, each has two inputs
and one output, assume that each gate and each intra-cluster delay is 0 while inter-cluster delay is 1,
please construct a delay-optimal clustering solution of G such that each cluster has no more than K
inputs and only one output. Please analyze the complexity of your algorithm.