Patent US 5,557,779

A control-signal distributing method used in a wiring-pattern network such that a control signal is supplied from root driver cells via repeating buffer cells to terminal cells. The method comprises the steps of: grouping the terminal cells into clusters containing at least one of the terminal cells, forming a binary-tree-shaped wiring pattern path where the root driver cells are root nodes and the clusters are leaf nodes, inserting the repeating buffer cells into the wiring pattern path at which delay time required for control signal transmission in the binary-tree-shaped path is minimized, calculating first delay amounts in a signal path defined from a branch node at a low level of the binary-tree-shaped path to the leaf nodes, setting physical positions of the branch nodes such that a difference among the calculated first delay amounts is minimized, separating the overlapped terminal cells from each other on the binary-tree-shaped path by updating previous information about a circuit connection when the repeating buffer cells are inserted and by correcting arrangement information about terminal cell positions adjacent to the buffer cells, determining a final wiring-pattern path within each of the clusters based upon the corrected arrangement information, calculating second delay amounts in the clusters based on the finally determined wiring-pattern path, determining respective branch node positions based on the second delay amounts, and determining a final wiring-pattern path among the branch nodes.