JPH03296173A - Method and device for improving parts arranging position - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automatically rearrange the parts at each proper position even after they are once arranged in a biased manner by providing an interested parts position deciding part, a parts moving part, and a control part and deciding again the parts arranging positions. CONSTITUTION:An interested parts position deciding part 102 decides the more appropriate positions based on the present positions and the connecting relations of the parts or a fixed grid, etc., for an interested part or a group of parts. A parts moving part 103 updates the position information on the interested parts at the position obtained by the part 102. Then a control part 104 notes successively the designated parts and repeats the operations of both parts 102 and 103 for each parts until the part 102 becomes unable to obtain any new position for all designated parts groups. Thus the proper parts arranging positions are decided again. In such a way, the parts can be properly rearranged even after they are once arranged with inclination.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for improving component placement in printed circuit board design and the like.

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the spread of printed circuit board design CAD, automatic placement devices that automatically determine the positions of electronic components during printed circuit board design are being used.

In general, such automatic placement methods and devices determine component placement positions on a pre-specified grid in consideration of component connection information, etc. If the grid width is specified as small, the component placement position is determined. If the parts tend to be lopsided, the wiring area between the two parts will be limited, making it difficult to wire, so it is not an appropriate placement. If you specify a large grid width, more space is required for placement.In such cases, parts that cannot be placed on the board tend to remain. In other words, if a part is not placed in the right place (by hand), if a part needs to be evenly distributed on the board using an interactive process, or if a part cannot be placed and remains (by hand). The problem to be solved by the invention is that while correcting the position of parts already placed on the board, remaining parts had to be placed in appropriate positions through interactive processing. Components may be unevenly placed on the board.

In consideration of the above-mentioned problems of conventional automatic placement methods and devices, the present invention automatically places parts in appropriate positions even after uneven placement. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and device for improving the placement position that can be relocated.

Means for Solving the Problems The present invention (mountain) In order to achieve the above objects, a storage unit is provided that stores area information, parts information, etc.

A part of interest position determining unit determines where to move the part of interest based on the positions and connection relationships between the parts for a more appropriate arrangement, and a part of interest determines where the part of interest should be moved for a more appropriate arrangement, and a new part is moved to the position determined by the part of interest position determination unit. A parts moving unit updates the information of the part of interest, and the specified parts are sequentially noticed, and each part is moved for each part until the part of interest position determination part cannot find a new position for all the specified parts group. The present invention constitutes a component placement position improvement device characterized in that it has a control unit that repeatedly executes the attention component position determining unit and the component moving unit, and redetermines two component placement positions.

It is also possible to group one or more parts and process them by treating the grouped objects as one part.

Processing for improving the arrangement position can be performed while maintaining the positional relationship between parts whose positional relationship has already been determined.

Further, by using a unique grid for each one or more parts, a more appropriate position can be determined for each part.

Function: The component arrangement position improving device of the present invention has the above-described configuration.
The part of interest position determining unit determines where to move the part of interest or a group of parts to achieve a more appropriate arrangement based on the positions and connection relationships between parts or a predetermined grid.2 The component moving unit updates the position information of the component of interest to the position determined by the component of interest position determination unit, and the control unit sequentially focuses on the designated components, and determines the location of the component of interest for all designated parts groups. The target component position determining section and the component moving section are repeatedly executed for each component until a new position cannot be found in the section, thereby making it possible to re-determine an appropriate component placement position.

Embodiment and above An embodiment of the component placement position improving device of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1(a) is a block diagram of a component placement position improvement device in one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 101 is the storage section
It stores the information necessary to determine the location of parts, such as the size of the board, the name of each part, size, original type, connection relationship with other parts, pin position, etc. Reference numeral 102 denotes a part of interest position determination unit 102. Based on the information in the storage unit 101, it determines where the part of interest should be placed more appropriately. 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. 1
04 is the control unit C. The attention component position determination unit 102 and the component movement unit 103 until the attention component position determination unit 102 cannot find a new position more appropriate than the current state of all specified components, that is, until the optimal position is found. Execute repeatedly.

FIG. 1(b) It is a flowchart of a component placement position improvement method in an embodiment of the present invention. 111 is a stage for determining the position of the part to be moved to determine the position of the part of interest 112 is a stage for determining the position of the part of interest 111 is a stage for moving the part to the position determined in 111 113 is whether the current state is optimal This is the stage where an end judgment is made to determine whether or not the process is complete.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the operations performed by the control unit 104 of the embodiment of the present invention configured as shown in FIG. 1.

The number of specified parts is N. Each part number is i.
(i=1 to N) and the necessary information is already stored in the storage section of this device. The flowchart shown in FIG. 2 will be explained below.

(201) Turn off the movement flag. Movement flag (top 21)
This flag is used to determine whether a part has been moved in a series of loops.

(202) Assign 1 to i.

(203) Pay attention to part i. Zunawaji Part 1 is the featured part.

(204) More suitable position around part i.

The target component position determination unit 102 determines the position.

(205) Part of interest position determination unit 1027. Determine whether a new position has been found. A new position is sought i;l
ll, go to 206. A new position must be found (top)
Go to 208.

(206) Information in the storage unit 101 is updated so that the part position is moved to the position determined in 205.

(207) Turn on the movement flag.

(208) Increase i by 1.

(209) i#i When the specified number of parts is less than N, go to 203. If i is greater than the specified number of parts N, go to 210.

(210) When the movement flag is on, go to 201.

When the movement flag is off, the process ends.

This means that no parts have been moved in a series of loops.This condition is judged to be optimal.

Fig. 3 (Main) This is a diagram explaining an example of determining the position of the part of interest. The grid in the figure (upper part shows the grid for arranging the parts. The reference point of the part is placed on this grid. In this example, this grid is used for all parts movement.The interval between grids is p.301
-305 are parts.

301 is part 1, 302 is part 2, and 303 is notable part i.
, 304 are parts N° C. These parts 301 to 304 are objects to be moved. 305 is a fixed part, and this part is not subject to movement.

If ■ is the set of all moving objects and J is the set of all objects considered for position determination, then in this figure I-(
1,2,i, N), J-(1,2゜i, N
, k).

In order to determine which direction is more appropriate to move the part of interest i, it is assumed that a repulsive force is exerted between each object of the set J, and a value corresponding to the potential energy of each object is determined as follows. The potential energy value ui of part i is determined by the following equation.

9- 0- Here, T and cij are the coefficients between parts l and J.

Normally, it is l, but if you want to place component 1 and component J particularly close, you can set it to a value smaller than 1 and larger than 0 depending on the degree. The larger these values are, the more repulsive force there is. For example, mi is a value such as the number of nets connected to component 1. rjj represents the distance between part 1 and part J. The distance is, for example, the smallest Manhattan distance between the external shapes of parts 1 and j, as shown in FIG. 4(a). However, when part 1 and part J overlap as shown in FIG. 4(b), the distance rij = 0.

That is, when another component overlaps with component l, ui becomes infinite. In Σ, the sum of the values for all objects J for j is taken as the value of uj.

The potential energy of such component i is determined for the current position of component 1 and points on the top, bottom, left and right that are one pitch apart (X marks in Figure 3), and ui(x, y) respectively.

■(x, y+p), ui(x, y-p), ui(x
−p, y), ui(x+p, y). Compare the five uiOs obtained above and find the value ui(x, y
) and the smallest point ui() 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 example of implementation of a component position improvement device according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5(a) is before the processing is performed. Parts 501 to 505 are arranged offset. Part 506 is a position fixing part. FIG. 5(b) shows that the parts have moved to the entire area after the processing has been executed. The position of the position fixing component 506 remains unchanged.

FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically showing an example of implementation with grouping of the component position improvement device according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 6(a), three parts 601. 602.
If 603 is regarded as one movement target 61O and the same processing as in the above embodiment is performed, three parts 601. 602.
The process as shown in FIG. 6(b) can be executed without damaging the positional relationship of the elements 603.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating grid functions determined for each component of the component position improvement device 1 2 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The grid of the component 710 is indicated by a solid line in the figure, and the pitch widths 712 and 713 of the component 710 are used when determining the placement position of the component of interest.

The X mark 714 is the reference point of this part 710, and the reference point of this part is always on the solid line grid. On the other hand, the grid of the component 720 is shown by solid lines and dotted lines in the figure, and the pitch width 722.723 of the component 720 is used when determining the placement position of the component of interest. Naturally, the movement width of component 720 is different from that of component 710 described above. This allows each component to be relocated to a position appropriate for it.

Effects of the invention If the method and device for improving the parts position of the present invention are used,
When the width of the placement grid is set small and the parts are automatically placed on the board and the parts are unevenly placed on the board, or when the parts are placed using other methods and the parts are not placed evenly on the board. However, since it becomes possible to automatically rearrange them to appropriate positions, and the need for human interaction to correct them each time is greatly reduced, this has a great practical effect.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The figure is a flowchart showing the processing flow of the parts position improving device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. The figure is a diagram illustrating the [distance J] in the process of determining the position of the part of interest in the parts position improving apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. Fig. 6 is a diagram schematically showing an example of execution with grouping of the parts position improving device according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 7 is a diagram showing parts of the parts position improving device according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 101... Memory set 102... Parts of interest position determination copying 103... Part movement wind 104... Control unit] 3-4 Fig. 2 Fig. 4 Fig. C) Distance t1j・0 Fig. ((1 ) A) Execution T series 1 completion Previous real rjt series JP 3 296173 (7) Fig. 14 1/- -'--? ■ ■ ■ 1-10-- 1 soup-1□ 7~'1-1; □-1 7 seku■ 11 small m-] 1-cho-1- 11 and a half-11''-- 10

Claims (6)

[Claims] (1) When determining the appropriate placement position of an electronic component on a board when designing a printed circuit board, etc., for the component whose placement position has been determined, For one or more parts groups,
A part of interest position determination step that determines where the part of interest should be moved for a more appropriate arrangement based on the positions and connection relationships between the parts, and a new position determined by the part of interest position determination step. and a parts moving step for updating information on the parts of interest, and the specified parts are focused on in order, and each of the specified parts is moved until a new position cannot be found in the part of interest position determination step for all specified parts groups. A component placement position improvement method, characterized in that the component placement position is re-determined by repeatedly executing the noted component position determination step and the component movement step for each component. (2) A storage unit that stores area information, component information, etc., and a component of interest that determines where to move the component of interest for a more appropriate placement based on the positions and connection relationships between components. a position determining unit; a component moving unit that updates information of a new target component at the position determined by the target component position determining unit; The present invention is characterized by comprising a control unit that repeatedly executes the attention component position determination unit and the component movement unit for each component until the component position determination unit cannot find a new position, and re-determines the component placement position. Parts placement position improvement device. (3) The component placement position improvement method according to claim 1, further comprising a function of grouping one or more components to be processed. (4) The component placement position improvement device according to claim 2, further comprising a function of grouping one or more components to be processed. (5) The component placement position improvement method according to claim 1, wherein a function of using a grid determined for each one or more components is added in the attention component placement position determining step. (6) The component placement position improvement device according to claim 2, wherein the component placement position determination unit of interest has an additional function of using a grid determined for each one or more components.