unplaced: This specifies that the instance is unplaced (does not have a location).
fixed: An instance marked as fixed has a location and cannot be moved by the tool, but can be moved using interactive commands. The “Pre-placed” instances cannot be upsized by the optimization engine if they are “fixed“.
placed: An instance marked as placed has a location, and can be moved using automatic tools and interactive commands. After global placement, the standard cell instances that are placed by the global placer are tagged as "placed". The "Pre-placed" instances can be moved by timing-driven placement inside IPO if they are in the “placed” status.
cover: An instance marked as cover has a location, but cannot be moved by automatic tools or interactive commands. An instance with status cover can overlap with another instance in same place without creating placement violation.
softFixed: The softFixed placement status means that instances cannot be moved by global placement, and can only be moved by the legalization step of detail placement. Instances with this status can also be upsized by optimization. This status is normally used when you want to keep the location of certain cells such as buffers near I/Os or FFs near macros but want to upsize these cells for timing.