is there any neat way to stop openroad from trying to place all of the logic in the small gap between macros rather than in the bigger area away from the macros? neither of the halo options seem to affect this even though they seem like a conceptually similar problem

Can you share your config.tcl? . I heard there is python script to handle those. Its work in progress. @Matt Liberty your thoughts on this

Its not related to python vs tcl. How are setting up the halos?

for now I have the following halo setup:

"FP_PDN_HORIZONTAL_HALO": 20,
    "FP_PDN_VERTICAL_HALO": 20,
    "FP_TAP_HORIZONTAL_HALO": 30,
    "FP_TAP_VERTICAL_HALO": 30,

(the gap between macros is about 20 microns but I've tried a bunch of different values for both gap and halos to no avail)

set ::env(PL_MACRO_CHANNEL) {0 0}
set ::env(PL_MACRO_HALO) {0 0}

For Macro placement spacing use above configuration with required spacing values by replacing

0

oh I missed that one, thanks

In ORFS we use https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/blob/master/flow/scripts/placement_blockages.tcl to block the channels. I don't see an OL equivalent

@gatecat Hi, do you remember how you resolved this issue?