Electric has a placement tool that can rearrange a circuit so that routing is easier. The tool can handle schematic or layout cells.

To run placement, use the Place Current Cell command (in menu Tools / Placement).

The Placement Preferences (in menu File / Preferences..., "Tools" section, "Placement" tab) let you control which placement algorithm is being used. It also lets you control specific preferences for each algorithm.

These are the possible placement algorithms:

  • "Simulated-Annealing-1" an experimental placer that uses Simulated Annealing to organized nodes.
  • "Simulated-Annealing-2" an experimental placer that uses Simulated Annealing to organized nodes.
  • "Genetic-1" an experimental placer that uses a genetic algorithm to organized nodes.
  • "Genetic-2" an experimental placer that uses a genetic algorithm to organized nodes.
  • "Force-Directed-1" an experimental placer that uses a force-directed algorithm to organized nodes.
  • "Force-Directed-2" an experimental placer that uses a force-directed algorithm to organized nodes.
  • "Min-Cut" a simple placer that uses min-cut to organize nodes.
  • "Random" and "Simple" randomly place nodes (for test purposes only).
Figure 9.26