(f, 2).

rm the quadrature mincut starting with vertical cut first, and place the
16 gates into 4 × 4 grid. Show the placement after each cut. The area skew
is set to zero, i.e., we desire perfectly balanced bipartitioning (= bisection)
at every mincut.
The following six cuts are added sequentially. Note that any partitioning
algorithm can be used for the bisection such as KL [Kernighan and Lin,
1970] or FM [Fiduccia and Mattheyses, 1982].
Cut 1: Figure 4.3(a) shows the placement after the first cut (= verti-
cal) with cutsize 3. Note that there exist other bisections with the same
cutsize.
Cut 2: Figure 4.3(b) shows the placement after the second cut (= hori-
zontal) with cutsize 5. At this point the first-level quadrants are formed.
Cut 3: Figure 4.3(c) shows the placement after the third cut (= vertical

Cut 3: Figure 4.9(c) shows the placement after the third cut. Figure 4.4
shows the terminal propagation performed for this cut. Nodes k and o
have external connections to n and j. Assuming n and j are placed at
the center of the left top partition, we propagate their terminal p 1 . Note
that p 1 is located outside the mid-third window. In addition, node g has
external connections to j, f , and b. Assuming that f and b are placed
at the center of the left bottom partition, p 2 represents their propagated
terminal. Note again that p 2 is located outside the mid-third window.
Based on these fixed terminals, the nodes k and o are partitioned to the
top, and g to the bottom to minimize the cutsize across the partition