In this paper, the notion of equivalent embedding of rectangular duals (floorplans) is introduced which leads to a new concept of canonical embedding of a rectangular dual; this is afloorplan corresponding to a given neighborhood graph such that the number of directed cycles in its channel digraph is minimum. Strongly maximal rectangular hierarchy (sMRH) in nonslicible floorplans is then defined. The canonical form of any arbitrary floorplan consists of at most one nonslicing core for each

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... r of SMRH. Such an embedding therefore, represents ajloorplan with minimum deviationsfrom a slicing structure. An O(n2) ,algorithm for realizing a canonical embedding is also presented. Canonical embedding Lends deep insight to the yet unsolved problem of characterizing inherent nonslicibility and motivates design for slicibility. It also makes determination of safe routing order amazingly simple. 0738-100)(/92 $3.00 43 1992 IEEE Paper 5 5