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To achieve timing closure in a placed design, buffer insertion and driver sizing are two of the most effective transforms that can be applied. Since the driver-sizing solution and the buffer-insertion solution affect each other, sub optimal solutions may result if these techniques are applied sequentially instead of simultaneously. We show how to simply extend van Ginneken's buffer-insertion algorithm to simultaneously incorporate driver sizing and introduce the idea of a delay penalty to encapsulate the effect of driver sizing on the previous stage. The delay penalty can be pre computed efficiently via dynamic programming. Experimental results show that using driver sizing with a delay-penalty function obtains designs with superior timing and area characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]