AbstractAs the objective functions for the placement problems for LSI and printed circuit board, the minimization of the total routing length and the minimization of the maximum min‐cut density have been used. These quantities are considered to reflect the objective of the layout problem (100% wiring ratio) globally. However, since they do not reflect local congestions of wiring, they are often inadequate as an objective function. This paper introduces a new concept of wire‐congestion of segments to represent the degree of local wire congestion. As an objective function, the minimization of the wire conjection of segments is proposed. An efficient heuristic algorithm is developed to minimize this objective function and the results of program experiments are presented to show its effectiveness. As a result of experiments, it was found that the maximum value of the wire‐congestion of segments became smaller as the total routing length became samller and that the former became larger as the latter became larger. Also obtained experimentally was a control parameter (wire‐congestion parameter) which simultaneously makes the total routing length short and the maximum of wire‐congest