feng shui 5.0 Frequently Asked Questions

• Why did the tool crash on design X?
  We are attempting to push forward as quickly as possible with new algorithmic techniques; thus, the tools are less stable than those based on incremental improvements to established techniques. If you require stability, we would recommend using commercial software. Note: we are aware of a difficulty with some mixed size designs. The ICCAD04 Faraday benchmarks in particular have been problematic, but we expect to have this issue resolved for version 5.1.
• When is the next version coming out?
  We anticipate version 5.1 will be released in April 2005.
• Version 5.0? What happened to 3.0 and 4.0?
  Version 3.0 of feng shui is the beacon placement technique; it has been integrated into the binary of version 5.0, along with version 2.0, which is the recursive bisection based method. By adding 2.0 to 3.0, we arrive at 5.0.
• Is a version available for my computer?
  The research group does development under Linux on x86 based hardware. We are considering porting to other platforms, but this is not currently a priority.
• When will X be supported?
  Tool additions and improvements to our software have largely been driven by research group funding. If you are interested in something specific, please contact the research group, and will consider adding it to our development schedule.