@donn : This has always been an annoyance to me from Openlane. To me, pins are "correct" only when (1) they have the same width as a route width, (2) they are centered on the route grid, and (3) they are seprated by a multiple of the route grid pitch. Ideally, pins should never be equally spaced. The best method for pin placement is that you should be able to declare in a pin constraints file any absolute contraints the floorplanning imposes on the pin position, such as which side it should be placed on, and what order relative to other pins, and whether bits of a bus should always be placed together, and whether they can be permuted. Then, the placement tool should place the pins as close to the optimal position for minimum total route length as possible given the constraints. Floorplanning that absolutely fixes the position of all pins is guaranteed to produce a sub-optimal layout.

@RTimothyEdwards I'll take a look at fulfilling these requirements after this is merged. The io_place.py script has always been somewhat haphazard for my liking.