The fermion flavor structure is investigated by bilinear decomposition of the mass matrix after EW symmetry breaking, and the roles of factorized matrices in flavor mixing and mass generation are explored. On a new Yukawa basis, the minimal parameterization of flavor mixing is realized containing two relative phases and two free [Formula: see text] rotation angles. It is shown that flavor mixing can be addressed from four independent parameters. The validity of the flavor mixing structure is checked in both the lepton and quark sectors. Under the decomposition of flavor mixing, fermion mass matrices are reconstructed in the hierarchy limit. A flat mass matrix with all elements equal to 1 arises naturally from the requirement that homology exists between up-type and down-type fermion mass matrices. Some hints of a flat matrix and flavor breaking are also discussed.