Abstract
We propose a power-driven flip-flop merging and relocation approach that can be applied after conventional timing-driven placement and before clock network synthesis. It targets to reduce the clock network size and thus the clock power consumption, as well as the switching power of the nets connected to the flip-flops by selectively merging flip-flops into multi-bit flip-flops and relocating them under timing and placement density constraints. The experimental results are very encouraging. For a set of benchmarks, our approach reduced the switching capacitance of clock network by 38 to 46% after gated clock tree synthesis. Meanwhile, the switching power of signal nets connected to the flip-flops were reduced by 7 to 42%.