JP2584099B2 - Component placement position improvement method and component placement position improvement device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for improving a component arrangement position in a printed circuit board design or the like.

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the spread of printed circuit board design CAD, automatic placement apparatuses that automatically determine the position of electronic components when designing printed circuit boards have been used.

In general, in such an automatic placement method and its apparatus, a component placement position is determined on a pre-designated grid at a location considered appropriate in consideration of component connection information and the like. Parts tended to be offset. If the components are offset, the wiring area between the components is limited, and the wiring is difficult to perform. Also, if a large grid width is specified so that components do not shift, more space is required for placement, and components that cannot be placed on the board and remain tend to occur.

In such cases, corrections have conventionally been made manually using the CAD interactive processing function. In other words, when a component is offset, a process of evenly scattering the component on the board in the interactive process is required. In the case where a component cannot be placed and remains, the remaining component must be placed at an appropriate position by interactive processing while manually correcting the position of the component already placed on the board. Was.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention As described above, in the conventional automatic placement method and apparatus therefor, components are shifted on the board or components that cannot be placed remain.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems of the conventional automatic arrangement method and apparatus, and has been made in view of the above circumstances. It is an object of the present invention to provide a position improving method and an apparatus therefor.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a storage unit that stores area information, component information, and the like, and a component that is focused on from the position and connection relationship between components. A part-of-interest determining unit that determines where to move the part to achieve a more appropriate arrangement; and a part moving unit that newly updates the information of the part of interest at the position obtained by the part-of-interest determining part. The noted component position determining unit and the component moving unit are repeatedly executed for each specified component until a new position is not determined by the noted component position determining unit for all designated component groups. A component arrangement position improving device having a control unit and redetermining a component arrangement position is provided.

It is also possible to group one or more parts as processing targets, and perform the above processing by regarding the grouped targets as one part, thereby obtaining the positional relationship between the parts whose positional relationship is already determined. Can be performed with the position maintained.

Further, the target component position determination unit can determine a more appropriate position for each component by using a unique grid for each of one or more components.

Function In the component arrangement position improving device of the present invention, the component-of-interest position determination unit, which has the above-described configuration, focuses attention on the position and connection relationship between components or a predetermined grid.
Where the part or grouped part is moved to obtain a more appropriate arrangement, and the part moving unit updates the position information of the part of interest to the position obtained by the part-of-interest position determination unit, The control unit sequentially pays attention to the designated components, and for each of the designated component groups, the noted component position determination unit and the component movement are performed for each component until a new position is not determined by the noted component position determination unit. This makes it possible to repeatedly determine the part placement position by repeatedly executing the parts.

Embodiment An embodiment of the component placement position improving apparatus of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1A is a configuration diagram of a component arrangement position improving apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 101 denotes a storage unit, which is information required for determining a component arrangement position such as a size of a board, names, sizes, coordinates of each component, connection relations with other components, and pin positions, and is specified in the board. Information such as the area to be moved, the parts to be moved, and the layout grid specified for each part is stored. Reference numeral 105 denotes a target component selection unit that selects a target component to be considered for next movement from the target components to be moved. Reference numeral 106 denotes an arrangement candidate position setting unit, which sets a plurality of positions on the grid corresponding to the component of interest as arrangement candidate positions. Reference numeral 102 denotes a target component position determination unit that determines, based on the information in the storage unit 101, where the target component is more appropriately located from among the placement candidate positions determined in step 106. A specific example of the component position determination method will be described later. A component moving unit 103 updates the component information stored in the storage unit 101 to the position determined by the component position determining unit 102. Reference numeral 104 denotes a control unit. The attention component position determination unit 102 and the component movement unit until the appropriate new position cannot be obtained from the current state of all designated components, that is, until the optimum position is obtained. The unit 103 is repeatedly executed.

FIG. 1B is a flowchart of a component arrangement position improving method according to an embodiment of the present invention. 114 is a step of selecting a target part to be examined next for moving; 115 is a step of determining some arrangement candidate positions; 111 is a target part of selecting one of the arrangement candidate positions and determining a position to move the part to The step of determining the position, 112 is the step of moving the part to move the part to the position determined in 111, and the step of 113 is the step of determining the end to determine whether the current state is optimal.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the operation performed by the control unit 104 according to the embodiment of the present invention configured as shown in FIG.
The number of specified parts is N, each of which is part number i
(I = 1 to N), and necessary information has already been stored in advance in the storage unit of this device. Hereinafter, the flowchart of FIG. 2 will be described.

(201) Turn off the movement flag. The movement flag is a flag used in the determination of 210 and indicates whether or not the part has been moved in a series of loops.

(202) Substitute 1 for i.

(203) Pay attention to the component i. That is, the component i becomes the component of interest.

(204) A more appropriate position around the component i is obtained by the target component position determination unit 102.

(205) The target component position determination unit 102 determines whether a new position has been determined. If a new position is found, go to 206. If no new position is found, go to 208.

(206) The information in the storage unit 101 is updated so as to move the component position to the position obtained in 205.

(207) Turn on the movement flag.

(208) Increment i by one.

(209) When i is equal to or smaller than the specified number of parts N, go to 203. i is
When the number of designated parts is larger than N, go to 210.

(210) If the movement flag is on, go to 201. When the movement flag is off, the processing ends. That is, since there is no component moved in a series of loops, it is determined that this state is optimal.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of determining the position of a target component. The public and private entities in the figure represent grids for component placement. The reference points of the parts are located on this grid. In this embodiment, this grid is used for all component movements. The spacing between the grids is p. 301-305
Is a part.

301 is a part 1, 302 is a part 2, 303 is a noticed part i, 304 is a part N
Thus, these parts 301 to 304 are objects to be moved. Reference numeral 305 denotes a fixed component k, which is not an object to be moved.

Assuming that I is the set of all moving objects and J is the set of all objects considered for position determination, in this figure, I = ｛1,2,
i, N｝, J = {1,2, i, N, k}.

Here, in order to determine to which direction the target component i should be moved, a repulsive force is assumed to act between the objects of the set J, and a value corresponding to the potential energy of each object is obtained as follows. The value ui of the potential energy of the component i is obtained by the following equation.

Here, cij is a coefficient between the component i and the component j and is usually 1, but if it is desired to arrange the component i and the component j particularly close to each other, the value is smaller than 1 and smaller than 0 depending on the degree. A larger value may be used. mi and mj are values specific to the component i and the component j, respectively, and the larger these values, the greater the repulsive force. mi is a value such as the number of nets connected to the component i. rij
Represents the distance between the component i and the component j. The distance is, for example, the smallest Manhattan distance between the outer shapes of the component i and the component j as shown in FIG. However, when the part i and the part j overlap as shown in FIG. That is, when another component overlaps with the component i, ui becomes infinite. In の, the value of j with respect to all the objects J is summed, and the sum is set as the value of ui.

The potential energy of the component i is represented by the current position of the component 1 and the vertical and horizontal points separated by one pitch (marks x in FIG. 3).
And ui (x, y), ui (x, y + p), ui
(X, y-p), ui (x-p, y), ui (x + p, y). By comparing the five ui () obtained above, the value ui (x,
y) The point of ui () smaller and smallest is set as a new target component position. When the value at the current position is the smallest, the target component position remains at the current position.

FIG. 5 is a diagram schematically showing an execution example of the component position improving apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5A shows a state before the processing is executed, in which the parts 501 to 505 are arranged offset.
The part 506 is a position fixing part. FIG. 5 (b) shows that the parts have been moved to the entire area after the processing has been executed. The position of the position fixing component 506 does not change.

FIG. 6 is a view schematically showing an execution example with grouping of the component position improving apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 6A, when the three parts 601, 602, 603 are regarded as one moving object 610 and the same processing as in the above embodiment is performed, the positional relationship between the three parts 601, 602, 603 is not lost, and FIG. The processing can be executed as follows.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a grid function defined for each component of the component position improving apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. parts
The grid 710 is shown by a solid line in the figure, and the component 710 uses the pitch widths 712 and 713 when determining the position of the target component. An x mark 714 is a reference point of this part 710, and this part always has this reference point on a solid grid. On the other hand, the grid of the component 720 is indicated by a solid line and a dotted line in the figure.
0 uses the pitch width 722,723. Naturally, the movement width of the part 720 is different from the part 710 of the previous term. Thereby, it can be rearranged at a position corresponding to each component.

EFFECT OF THE INVENTION By using the component position improving method and the device thereof according to the present invention, when the width of the placement grid is reduced and the components are automatically arranged on the substrate and the components are offset on the substrate, or when other components are offset. Even if parts are not arranged evenly on the board by the arrangement method, it is possible to automatically relocate them to the appropriate position so as to interleave in the empty area, and each person can use interactive processing The practical effect is great because the need for correction is greatly reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram and a flow chart showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing flow of a component position improving apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a view for explaining the process of determining the position of the target component of the component position improving apparatus of FIG.
FIG. 5 is a diagram schematically showing an example of execution of the component position improving apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a grouping of the component position improving apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 7 is a diagram schematically showing the accompanying execution example, and FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a grid function defined for each component of the component position improving apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention. 101: storage unit, 102: attention component position determination unit, 103: component movement unit, 104: control unit.

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] In a method for obtaining a more appropriate arrangement position of a component whose arrangement position has been once determined on a substrate in designing a printed circuit board or the like, one or more components to be moved are specified by designating an area to be moved in the substrate. , A grid is specified for each moving target component, a target component selecting step of selecting a target component from the moving target components, and a plurality of positions on the grid corresponding to the current position of the target component and the target component. Candidate position setting step of setting the position of the target component as a position candidate position, and, when the target component is placed at the position for each of the calculated candidate positions, the positional relationship between the target component and the board shape or other components, connection It is determined whether or not the layout improvement is performed based on the relationship, and a target component position determining step of obtaining the best layout position from the layout candidate positions; and a new position determined by the target component position determining step. A target component is selected in the target component selection step, a placement candidate position is determined in the placement candidate position determination step, and a new placement position is determined in the target component position determination step. If determined, the target component is moved in the component moving step, and the above-described processing is repeatedly executed until a new position is not obtained in the target component position determining step for all the moving target components. A part placement position improving method characterized by determining. 2. A storage unit which stores area information, component information and a movement target area designated in a board, at least one movement target component, and a grid designated for each movement target component, An attention component selection unit that selects an attention component from among the target components; a placement candidate position setting unit that takes a plurality of positions on a grid corresponding to the current location of the attention component and the attention component; When the component of interest is arranged at the position for each of the determined arrangement candidate positions, it is determined whether the arrangement is improved based on the positional relationship between the component of interest and the board shape or other components, and the connection relationship. A target component position determining unit for obtaining the best arrangement position from among the components, a component moving unit for newly moving the target component to the position determined in the target component position determining step, and a target component selected by the target component selector. ,Before The placement candidate position determining unit obtains a placement candidate position, and if the target component position determining unit determines a new placement position, the target component is moved by the component moving unit, and the target component position is moved with respect to all target components. A component placement position improving device, comprising: a control unit that repeatedly executes the above processing until a new position is no longer determined by the determination unit, and redetermines the component placement position.