Chapter 7 - computer simplification of multi-valued switching functions

Abstract

The technology has moved into the medium scale integration (MSI) and large scale integration (LSI) areas. One of the most important problems is the pin limitation of the integrated circuits. Multi-valued logic allows each input pin to accept and each output pin to deliver more information. For the same amount of information transfer, the total number of pins required in an integrated circuit chip containing multi-valued logic elements is less than that of an integrated circuit chip with binary elements. Recent development and future speculation of design automation have indicated that computer-aided logic design is the important goal to achieve. The minimization of switching functions by a digital computer has been found to be useful for designing random and array logic. For the functions with a large number of variables, the use of a computer for minimization becomes a must. This chapter discusses a cubical representation for multi-valued switching functions and, using this notation, computer-oriented algorithms are presented for simplifying multi-valued switching functions.