EC381

Digital Systems

Lecture # 7
Summary of Properties of Minterms

 There are 2n minterms for n Boolean variables

 Any boolean function can be expressed as a
logical sum of minterms
 The complement of a function contains those
minterms not included in the original function.
 A function that includes all the 2n minterms is
equal to logic 1.

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Sum of Products

 The sum-of-minterms form is a standard algebraic

expression that is obtained directly from a truth
table.
 The expression obtained contains the maximum
number of literals in each term.
 Simplification of the sum-of-minterms
expression is called sum-of-products (SOP).

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 Sum of minterms vs. Sum of Products

Sum of minterms

F  XYZ  XYZ  XYZ  XYZ

Sum of products (SOP)

F  Y XYZ XY

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 Sum of Products Implementation

Sum of products

F  Y XYZ XY

We refer to this implementation as a two-

level circuit

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 2-level vs 3-level implementation

 Sum of products has 2 levels of gates

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 2-level vs 3-level implementation

AB + CD + CE can be
Also expressed as
AB + C(D+E)

What’s best?
• Hard to answer!!
• More gate delays?
• But maybe we only have 2-input gates

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Circuit Cost
 For a circuit, we will define a COST. We will ignore NOT gates at the
inputs of a circuit; all other gates count as 1 and every gate input will count
as 1.

 Cost of f1 is 1 AND + 1 OR + 4 GATE INPUTS = 6.

 Cost of f2 is 3 AND + 1 OR + 11 GATE INPUTS = 15.

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 Product of Maxterms
 We can also express F as AND of all
rows that should evaluate to 0

F  M1  M 3  M 4  M 6
F ( X , Y , Z )  M (1,3,4,6)

F  ( X  Y  Z )( X  Y  Z )
( X  Y  Z )( X  Y  Z )

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Product of Sum (POS)

 The product-of maxterms form is a standard

algebraic expression that is obtained directly from a
truth table.
 The expression obtained contains the maximum
number of literals in each term.
 Simplification of the product-of maxterms
expression is called Product of Sum (POS)

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Product of Sum (POS) implementation

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Circuit Optimization
 Goal: To obtain the simplest
implementation for a given function
 Optimization is a more formal approach
to simplification that is performed using
a specific procedure or algorithm
 Optimization requires a cost criterion to
measure the simplicity of a circuit
 Distinct cost criteria we will use:
• Literal cost (L)
• Gate input cost (G)
• Gate input cost including inverters (GN)
Circuit Optimization
Literal Cost
 Literal – a variable or its complement
 Literal cost – the number of literal
appearances in a Boolean expression
corresponding to the logic circuit diagram
 Example: Boolean expressions for F
• F=BD+ABC+ACD L=8
• F=BD+ABC+ABD+ABC L = 11
• F = (A+B)(A+D)(B+C+D)(B+C+D) L = 10
• Which solution is best? First solution is best
Circuit Optimization
 Gate Input Cost
 Gate Input Cost: Count of total number of inputs to the
gates in the logic circuit implementation
 Two gate input costs are defined:
G = Count of gate inputs without counting Inverters
GN = Count of gate inputs + count of Inverters
 For SOP and POS equations, the gate input cost can be
found from the Boolean expression by finding the sum of:
• All literal appearances
• Number of terms excluding single literal terms (added to G)
• Number of distinct complemented single literals (added to GN)
 Example:
L = 8 G = L+3 = 11
• F=BD+ABC+ACD
GN = G+3 = 14
Circuit Optimization
Cost Criteria (continued)
 Example 1: GN = G + 2 = 9
L= 5
 F=A +BC + BC
G=L+2= 7
B
C
A F

 L (literal count) counts the AND inputs and the single

literal OR input.
 G (gate input count) adds the remaining OR gate inputs
 GN(gate input count with NOTs) adds the inverter inputs

Circuit Optimization
 Cost Criteria (continued)
 Example 2: A
B
 F = A B C + AB C C
 L = 6 G = 8 GN = 11 F
 F = (A + C)( B + C)( A + B)
 L = 6 G = 9 GN = 12
 Same function and same A
literal cost B
 But first circuit has better C
gate input count and better F
gate input count with NOTs
 Select first circuit!

Circuit Optimization
Cost Criteria Summary
 Literal Count:
• Simple to evaluate by counting all literals
• However, does not represent circuit complexity
accurately in all cases
 Gate Input Cost (or Count):
• Good measure of logic implementation
• Proportional to the number of transistors and
wires used in the implementation
• Important when measuring cost of circuits with
more than two levels
Circuit Optimization
Boolean Function Optimization
 Minimizing the gate input (or literal) cost of a
Boolean equation reduces the circuit cost
 We choose gate input cost
 Boolean Algebra and graphical techniques are tools to
minimize cost criteria values
 Some important questions:
• When do we stop trying to reduce the cost?
• Do we know when we have a minimum cost?
 Treat optimum or near-optimum cost functions
for two-level (SOP and POS) circuits first
 Introduce a graphical technique using Karnaugh maps
(K-maps for short)
Circuit Optimization
Karnaugh Map (K-map)
 A K-map is a collection of squares
• Each square represents a minterm
• The collection of squares is a graphical representation of a
Boolean function
• Adjacent squares differ in the value of one variable
• Alternative algebraic expressions for the same function are
derived by recognizing patterns of squares

 The K-map can be viewed as

• A reorganized version of the truth table

Circuit Optimization
Some Uses of K-Maps
 Provide a means for:
• Finding optimum or near optimum
 SOP and POS standard forms
 Two-level AND/OR and OR/AND circuits
for functions with small numbers of variables
• Visualizing concepts related to manipulating
Boolean expressions, and
• Demonstrating concepts used by computer-aided
design programs to simplify large circuits

Circuit Optimization
Karnaugh Maps

 Graphical depiction of truth table

 A box for each minterm
 So 2 variables, 4 boxes
 3 variable, 8 boxes
 And so on
 Useful for simplification
 By inspection
 Algebraic manipulation harder

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Examples

 There are implied 0s in other boxes

 Figure (b) F = m1 + m2 + m3

F  XY XY XY  X  Y
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 Simplification using Boolean
Algebra

F  XY XY XY
 XY X (Y  Y )
 XY X (1)
 X Y

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Three-Variable Map

 Eight minterms
 Look at encoding of columns and rows

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Simplification

 Adjacent squares (horizontally or

vertically) are minterms that vary by
single variable
 Draw rectangles on map to simplify
function
 Illustration next

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How to obtain a simplified expression?

 Combine as many 1’s as possible from the

map to form rectangle
 Only adjacent 1’s can be combined
vertically or horizontally but not diagonally.
 The number of 1’s that can be combined is a
power of 2, i.e. 1, 2, 4, 8

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 Example

X Y Z F
0 0 0 0
0 0 1 0
0 1 0 1
0 1 1 1
1 0 0 1
1 0 1 1
1 1 0 0 F  XY  XY
1 1 1 0

F  XYZ  XYZ  XYZ  XYZ

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Another Example

 In general, as more squares are

combined, we obtain a product term
with fewer literals.
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Combining Squares
 By combining squares, we reduce number of literals in a
product term, thereby reducing the gate input cost

 On a 3-variable K-Map:
• One square represents a minterm with 3 variables

• Two adjacent squares represent a term with 2 variables

• Four adjacent squares represent a term with 1 variable

• Eight adjacent square is the function 1 (no variables)

Circuit Optimization