Netwise

“They have also other ornaments, which they call cawles, made netwise, to the end, as I think, that the cloth of gold, cloth of silver, or else tinsel (for that is the worst), wherewith their heads are covered and attired withal […]”

Nature, as Bacon pithily says, joins her work rather 'netwise than chainwise.'

From Observation 2.2.1, it is evident that a placement has optimal HPWL if all its nonlocal nets can be partitioned into netwise-disjoint monotone chains with fixed endpoints. […] Starting from the placement of the real benchmark, sets of nets are identified that can be grouped together into netwise-disjoint monotone chains between well-separated fixed terminals.

Yet despite its collapse, this long-shot to front-runner campaign stands out as the best example to date of what a netwise operation can achieve.