Fast Computation of Determination of the Prime Implicants by a Novel Near Minimum Minimization Method

In this study proposed is an off-set-based direct-cover near-minimum minimization method for single-output Boolean functions represented in a sum-of-products form. To obtain the complete set of prime implicants including given on-cube (on-minterm), the proposed method uses off-cubes (off-minterms) expanded by this On-cube. The amount of temporary results produced by this method does not exceed the size of the offset. To make fast computation, we used logic operations instead of standard operations. Expansion off-cubes, commutative absorption operations and intersection operations are realized by logic operations for fast computation. The proposed minimization method is tested on several different kinds of problems and benchmarks results of which are compared with logic minimization program ESPRESSO. The results show that proposed algorithm obtains good results and faster than ESPRESSO.