JPH02205974A - Device for automatically arranging component on printed board - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily realize the functional block of a circuit on a printed board by deciding the arranging priority of each component based on component function information stored in a data base storage part, and deciding an arranging position hierarchically from the component with higher priority based on decided priority and connection information. CONSTITUTION:The arranging priority is decided by a function attained by the component in the circuit by utilizing the function in formation of the component by a arranging priority deciding means 7 by storing the function information of the component in the data base storage part 3. And the components with the same priority in sequence of higher priority are collected, and an arranging method suitable for the hierarchy of the component is taken by an in-hierarchy arranging position deciding means 8. Therefore, arrangement fitted hierarchically in the function can be performed corresponding to the priority. In such a way, the functional block of the circuit can automatically be realized on the printed board without receiving a detail instruction by a person.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to automatic placement of components on a printed circuit board, and particularly to an automatic placement device that takes advantage of the characteristics of components and signal lines.

Conventional technology Conventional printed circuit board automatic placement equipment uses information about the parts to be placed on the printed circuit board and the connection relationships between those parts, treats each part as a point, and connects the parts to the corresponding point. They defined it as the attractive or repulsive force acting between them, and chose a location where these forces were balanced. Also, as another method,
The board was divided into grid-like grids, and the parts were selected and placed in positions that would shorten the length of the wires that connected them. (References M., Hanan, P.
KJolff Sr. and B.J.Agule,”
A 5tudy of placement technique
nfques,'in Journal of Desl
gn Automation and FauIt-T
oleant Coa+putting, vol. 1,
October 1971i, p, 214-224.
M., Hanan, P. K. Wolfser, and B. J. Aigle, 'Astudio of
Placement Technics.

”In Journal of Design Automation and Fault Tolerant Computing, Volume 1. October 1978.
Page 2) Problems to be solved by the invention However, with the above-mentioned method, parts are placed based on a uniform evaluation regardless of the size of the function of the part, making it impossible to place the circuit with a macroscopic understanding of the circuit. There is a problem in that in order to realize functional blocks on a printed circuit board, a person must perform automatic placement while giving detailed instructions on the parts to be placed and the area in which they should be placed according to the function of the part. was there.

In addition, when originally focusing on active components and determining their component positions, there was a problem in that connection information between active components was blocked by passive components, making it impossible to properly grasp the connection relationships between active components.

Further, since the arrangement position is determined by considering the signal lines in the same way as other signal lines without considering the characteristics of the signal lines called bundled lines, there is a problem that the arrangement becomes inconvenient for the wiring.

In view of this point, the first invention is based on a method that allows a person to give detailed instructions (
However, it is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board that can automatically realize functional blocks of a circuit on a printed circuit board.

A second object of the present invention is to provide an automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board that can grasp the connection relationships of active components according to the functions of signal lines.

In addition, the third invention takes advantage of the characteristics of the signal line called bundled line,
It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board that can automatically consider the wiring method and determine placement positions.

Means for Solving the Problems A first invention includes a database storage unit that stores functional information of each component to be arranged on a printed circuit board and connection information between the components, and a database storage unit that stores function information of each component to be arranged on a printed circuit board and connection information between the components; A placement priority determining means that determines the placement priority of each component based on the information, and placement of components in the hierarchy starting from the highest priority based on the priority determined by the placement priority determining means and connection information. This is an automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board that hierarchically determines placement positions using a position determining means.

A second invention includes a database storage section that stores functional information of each component to be arranged on a printed circuit board and connection information between the components, and a database storage section that stores functional information of the components and connection information between the components that are stored in the database storage section. A passive component search means searches for a circuit part to which an active component is connected via a passive component based on the circuit part information and connection information between the parts searched by the search means. For the circuit part, a connection information modification means creates connection information between components with passive components removed, and connection information is created again with the passive components deleted by the connection information modification means returned to their original circuit state. after placing a component other than the passive component searched by the passive component search means based on the connection information and component information created by the connection information modification means, the connection information restoration means This is an automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board that places passive components searched by the passive component search means based on connection information and component information.

A third invention includes a database storage section that stores information on components to be placed on a printed circuit board and connection information between the components; bundled wire connection component group search means for searching for multiple parts connected by the same bundled wire of different types or more; and bundled wire connection for determining relative positions of parts searched by the search means in advance based on connection information. A component group intra-component relative position determining means and a bundled wire connected parts group fist database storage means for storing a plurality of parts whose relative positions are determined by the bundled wire connected parts group relative position determining means as one part in a database storage part. These parts and other parts are considered in the same way and arranged on the printed circuit board, and after the arrangement process is completed, the detailed arrangement position of each part of the bundled wire connection parts is provided to the database storage section. This is an automatic parts placement device.

In the first aspect of the invention, functional information of a component is stored in a database storage unit, and the placement priority determining means uses the functional information of the component to determine the placement priority based on the function performed by the component in the circuit. By collecting parts with the same priority in descending order of priority and using the intra-hierarchical placement position determining means to arrange the parts in a way that suits the hierarchy, it is possible to arrange them hierarchically according to their priorities and according to their functions. That is.

The second invention distinguishes between passive components and active components based on the functional information of the components stored in the database storage section, searches for circuit parts in which these are combined by a passive component search means, and generates a passive component deletion means. By temporarily deleting the passive components from the connection information, it is possible to obtain the connection information of the active components that were blocked by the passive components, and furthermore, the passive components that were temporarily deleted from the connection information are also included in the connection information. The restoration means makes it possible to arrange the circuit according to the original circuit information.

The third invention uses a bundled wire connection component group search means to search for a circuit part that should be arranged by taking advantage of the characteristics of signal lines called bundled wires from connection information stored in a database storage section, and By determining the relative positional relationship between the parts by making use of the characteristics of bundled wires using the inner relative position determination means, and by storing those parts as one part in the database using the bundled wire connection parts group fist database storage means. , it is possible to determine the placement position on the printed circuit board by treating it like any other component.

Embodiment Hereinafter, one embodiment of automatic printed circuit board placement according to the present invention will be described in detail using a digital board as an example.

FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration diagram of the automatic printed circuit board placement device. 1 is an input device through which the user inputs commands, etc., 2 is an output device for displaying and outputting results, 3 is a database storage unit that stores component information and connection information, and 4 is located in the database storage unit and is functional information of the component. 5 is also in the database storage unit and is a connection information storage unit that stores connection information between parts. 6 determines the placement position of the parts based on the input from 1 while referring to 3. 7 is a placement priority determination unit that determines the placement priority of each component during automatic processing; 8 is a placement priority determining unit that determines the placement priority of each component during automatic processing; 8 is a component that has the same priority in accordance with the placement priority determined in 7 In-hierarchy placement position determination means 9 determines the placement position of , passive component search means 9 searches for circuit parts to which active components are connected across passive components, and 10 searches from the circuit parts searched in 9. −
11 is a connection information modification means for creating connection information in a circuit state from which passive components have been temporarily removed; and 11 is a connection information restoration means for creating connection information in which the passive components temporarily deleted in 10 are returned to an optical state. , 12 is a wire bundle connection component group search means for searching for a plurality of parts that are connected to each other by two or more types of the same wire bundle, and 13 is a wire bundle connection component group that determines the relative position of the component searched in 12. The inner relative position determination means 14 is a bundled wire connection component group database storage means for storing the component group whose relative position has been determined in 13 as one component in the database storage section.

Further, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the details of the processing flow of the automatic processing section in the same embodiment, and FIGS. 3 to 5 are flowcharts showing the detailed processing flow of each section in FIG. FIG. 6 shows an example of a circuit diagram and relative position of a bundled wire connection component group, and FIG. 7 shows an example of a circuit portion in which active components are connected across passive components.

In the embodiment, first, a wire bundle connection component group is searched, and after its relative position is determined, it is stored in the database storage section. FIG. 8 shows the detailed processing flow of this part. Here, we will limit the objects for creating bundled wire connection parts groups to memory and buffer, and select these two from among the parts to be placed.
Perform processing on different types of parts.

101 Check whether there is any unprocessed memory or buffer in the part to be placed. If not, the process ends.

102 Note any one of the unprocessed memories or buffers.

103 Search for a component of the same type as the component of interest in step 102, which is connected to two or more of the same types of wire bundles as the component of interest. In other words, components having a connection relationship such as ICI to IC4 in FIG. 6(a) are searched for.

104 If two or more matching parts are not found, the process returns to 101 to search for the next circuit part.

106 If the signal lines to be connected that form a bundle are exactly the same, arrange the parts side by side. That is, in FIG. 6, ICI and IC3 are arranged side by side as shown in FIG. 6(b), since both the bundled lines DA-AD are exactly the same signal line.

106 If some or all of the signal lines forming the bundled lines to be connected are different, set relative positions such that they are arranged vertically. That is, IC1 and IC2 are the same signal line with respect to the bundled line DA, but different signal lines are connected with respect to the bundled line AD, so they are arranged vertically as shown in FIG. 6(b).

107 Find the size of the area occupied by the entire relative position set in 105.106.

108 Combine the duplicate signal lines connected to the memory or buffer of interest into one, and combine the others.

109 Register in the database storage section as one component having the size determined in step 107 and the connection relationship determined in step 108.

After performing steps 101 to 109 on the hanger of the placement target part,
Next, decide on priorities. This detailed process flow is explained in the fourth section.
As shown in the figure. Typically, connectors are predetermined in position due to other board or manufacturing constraints. Regarding automatic placement,
Unplaced parts are placed based on the placed parts. Therefore, in the digital board, priorities are set in the following order.

201 Parts connected to connectors. However, it targets a series of parts including relatively large ICs, CPUs, memories, and I10 gates.

202 CPU, memory, I10 gate, buffer 1, latch Φ path transceiver, etc. connected to the wire bundle.

203 After setting the priority order of the IC204 discrete components other than the above (1) and (2), arrange them in the hierarchy according to the priority order.

20 Initialize which parts are targeted in that hierarchy.

21 Evaluate whether to modify connection information. In this embodiment, the connection information is modified when the placement target is an IC, that is, when the priority is (3). FIG. 5 shows a detailed flow of connection information modification processing. Figure 7(a)
In this circuit, components A and B are not connected because of component group C. Since the component group is a passive component, connection information for the connection state shown in FIG. 7(b) with these components removed is created. Now, we will consider coils, resistors, and jumpers as the types of passive components to be removed, and will limit ourselves to cases where the number of pins is 2 and the components on both sides to be connected are ICs.

301 Pay attention to one unprocessed part.

302 Check whether the type of component is a coil, resistor, or jumper. If it is neither, it is not applicable and returns to 301.

303 Check the number of pins. Items other than 2 bins are not eligible, so return to 301.

304 Check whether the components on both sides to be connected are ICs. If this is not the case, the process returns to 301 because it is not applicable.

305 Modify the data so that the bins on both sides to be connected are connected by the same signal line.

The operations 301 to 305 are repeated for all parts.

In addition, if the component to be placed is not an IC, as shown in Fig. 7(b)
It is necessary to restore the connection information set as shown in (a), but in this example, by creating a temporary connection information table separate from the original connection information, the connection information can be restored. Facilitate the processing of means. After performing the above pre-processing, the placement position of each component is determined. When determining the placement position, for example, the priority order (1
).

For the parts in (2), by adopting a placement method using knowledge such as that found in Japanese Patent Application No. 145148/1983,
It is more effective to incorporate the flow of signal lines into the layout on the printed circuit board. Also, priority (3), (
Components 4) may be arranged using the conventional centroid method or cluster growth method.

Effects of the Invention As can be seen from the above explanation, the present invention makes it possible to improve the function of a circuit, since in the past, parts with a large function and parts with a small function were uniformly treated as points and their connection relationships were expressed in terms of force relationships. While it was impossible to place the circuit in a top-down manner, while grasping the general flow of the circuit and using the same image as how a person reads a circuit,
It becomes easy to realize functional blocks of a circuit on a printed circuit board.

In addition, while conventional methods could only consider the connection relationship between two directly connected parts, the present invention allows
Connection relationships are created taking into account the effects on signal lines depending on the nature of the parts, and the placement positions of the parts are determined based on the connection information, allowing for automatic placement that better matches the flow of signal lines.

Furthermore, in the conventional method, any signal line was evaluated using the same evaluation criteria without considering the characteristics of the signal line. By setting the relative positional relationship in advance, the characteristics of the signal flow can be incorporated into the detailed parts of the circuit. Furthermore, by determining the position of these components on the board as one component, it becomes possible to automatically arrange the functional blocks in a bottom-up manner.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the entire structure of an automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the process flow of the automatic processing section in the same embodiment, and FIGS. Figure 5 is a flowchart showing the details of each part in Figure 2, Figure 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the concept of bundled wire connection component groups, and Figure 7 is an illustration of the concept of circuit parts where active components are connected via passive components. FIG. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Input device, 2... Output device, 3... Database storage section, 4... Parts information storage section, 5... Connection information storage section, 6... Automatic processing section, 7. ... Placement priority determining means, 8... Hierarchical placement position determining means, 9...
Passive component search means, 10... connection information modification means, 11
. . . connection information restoration means, 12 . . . bundled wire connected parts group search means, 13 . . . bundled wire connected parts group relative position determination means, 14 . Name of agent: Patent attorney Shigetaka Kurino and one other person

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) A database storage unit that stores functional information of each component to be placed on a printed circuit board and connection information between the components, and placement of each component based on the component function information stored in the database storage unit. A placement priority determining means for determining the priority, and determining placement positions hierarchically starting from the component with the highest priority based on the priority determined by the placement priority determining means and connection information between the components. What is claimed is: 1. An automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board, comprising an intra-hierarchical placement position determining means, and arranging each component in a hierarchical manner. (2) a database storage section that stores functional information of each component to be placed on a printed circuit board and connection information between the components; a passive component search means for searching for a circuit part to which an active component is connected via a passive component; connection information modification means for creating connection information between components with passive components removed; and connection information for re-creating connection information with the passive components deleted by the connection information modification means returned to their original circuit state. and a restoration means, the connection information modification means arranges a component other than the passive component searched by the passive component search means based on the connection information and parts information created by the connection information modification means, and then restores the original component by the connection information restoration means. An automatic component placement device on a printed circuit board, characterized in that passive components searched by the passive component search means are placed based on connection information and component information. (3) A database storage unit that stores information on parts to be placed on a printed circuit board and connection information between the parts; A wire bundle connection component group search means for searching for a plurality of parts connected by the same wire bundle, and a wire bundle connection component group search means for searching for a plurality of parts connected by the same wire bundle, and a wire bundle connection component group for determining the relative position of a group of parts searched by the search means in advance based on connection information. intra-group relative position determination means; bundled wire connection parts group database storage means for storing a plurality of parts whose relative positions have been determined by the bundled wire connection parts group relative position determination means as one part in a database storage section; Automatic component placement device on printed circuit boards.