Abstract: For extracting hierarchical circuit structures effectively in different applications,a clustering algorithm based on hypergraph model is proposed.Firstly,basic characteristic circuit structures such as the iterative structure,the bus structure,the fan-in structure and the series structure are recognized automatically.Then,by multilevel clustering,hierarchical design is constructed from these basic structures.Our clustering algorithm for basic structures is a high-efficiency method due to a good adaptability for hypergraph data structure.Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain exact hierarchical information with a low time complexity.