This book provides a superb introduction to and overview of the MIT PI System for custom VLSI placement and routing. Alan Sher man has done an excellent job of collecting and clearly presenting material that was previously available only in various theses, confer ence papers, and memoranda. He has provided here a balanced and comprehensive presentation of the key ideas and techniques used in PI, discussing part of his own Ph. D. work (primarily on the place ment problem) in the context of the overall design of PI and the contributions of the many other PI team members. I began the PI Project...