Circuit Netlist and Placement File Formats

In either a netlist or a placement file, a sharp (#) sign indicates that the remainder of the line is a comment. A backslash (/) at the end of a line means the line is continued on the line below.

Circuit Netlist (.net) Format

Three different circuit elements exist: input pads, output pads, and logic blocks. In addition, the netlist file can also declare that a signal is global; that is, that a signal will be routed via a special, dedicated resource and should therefore be ignored during routing.

Input Pads

Input pads are declared via .input lines: 

.input my_pad
    pinlist: my_net

The lines above indicate that there is an input pad named my_pad which drives a net called my_net. Pads can have the same name as signal nets with no conflicts. 

.input alpha
   pinlist: alpha    # No conflict between pad and net name.

Output Pads

Output pads are declared via .output lines: 

.output my_opad
    pinlist: some_net

The lines above declare a pad named my_opad. It is connected to net some_net.

FPGA Logic Blocks

Logic blocks are declared via the .clb keyword: 

.clb my_logic_block
    pinlist:  in_a in_b in_c in_d out_net clk
    subblock: sb_one 0 1 2 3 4 5              # Ignore this line.

Recall that the logic block contains a 4-input LUT and a flip flop. The lines above declare a logic block named my_logic_block. The pinlist line lists the nets connected to this logic block. The nets connected to the four LUT inputs are listed first, followed by the net connected to the logic block output and then the net connected to the logic block clock pin. The subblock line gives information that is useful for timing analysis -- for the purposes of the place-and-route challenge it is irrelevant and should be completely ignored.

A logic block may not need signals connected to all of its LUT inputs or to its clock pin. In this case the unconnected pins are marked as open. 

.clb my_logic_block
    pinlist:  in_a open open in_d out_net open 
    # Only 2 LUT inputs, no clock 

    subblock: sb_one 0 1 2 3 4 5          # Ignore this line.

Global Signals

Some signals in FPGAs are normally routed via dedicated, special-purpose networks, rather than the general routing resources. For the place-and-route challenge, clocks are assumed to be routed on a dedicated network so they should not be routed by your tools or included in your track count numbers.

Global signals are indicated in the netlist file by .global lines:

.global clk # Don't route clk net.

For the place-and-route challenge, the only net marked as global is the clock net.

Placement File Format

The first line of the placement file lists the netlist file and the architecture description file used by VPR when it created the placement. The second line of the placement file gives the size of the logic block array (e.g. 20 x 20 logic blocks).

All the following lines have the format:

block_name    x        y   subblock_number

The block name is the name of this block, as given in the input netlist. X and y are the row and column in which the block is placed, respectively. The subblock number is meaningful only for pads. Since we can place two pads in a row or column (see the FPGA architecture description) the subblock number specifies which of the possible pad locations (either location 0 or location 1) in row x and column y contains this pad. Note that the first pad occupied at some (x, y) location is always that with subblock number 0. For logic blocks (.clbs), the subblock number is always zero.

The placement files output by VPR also include a fifth field as a comment. You can ignore this field.

The figure below shows the coordinate system used by VPR via a small 2 x 2 (logic block array) FPGA. Logic blocks all go in the area with x between 1 and 2 and y between 1 and 2, inclusive. All pads either have x equal to 0 or 3 or y equal to 0 or 3. Notice that there are no pads in the chip corners, so no I/O pins can be placed there.

Placement Coordinate System

[Placement Coordinate System]

A sample placement file is given below. The first six blocks are I/O pads, while the last two blocks are logic blocks. 

Netlist file: xor5.net   Architecture file: sample.arch
Array size: 2 x 2 logic blocks

#block name		x	y	subblk		block number
#----------		--	--	------		------------
a			0	1	0		#0  NB: block number
b			1	0	0		#1  is a comment.
c			0	2	1		#2  Ignore it.
d			1	3	0		#3
e			1	3	1		#4
out:xor5		0	2	0		#5
xor5			1	2	0		#6
[1]			1	1	0		#7
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