Abstract
A novel approach to the one-dimensional gate assignment problem is presented in this paper where the problem is NP-hard and one of the most fundamental layout problems in VLSI design. The proposed system is composed of n × n processing elements called the artificial two-dimensional maximum neurons for (n + 2)-gate assignment problems. We have discovered the improved solutions in the benchmark problems over the best existing algorithms. The proposed parallel algorithm is also applicable to other VLSI layout problems.