Field Programmable Gate Array Hardware Accelerator of Prime Implicants Generation for Single-Output Boolean Functions Minimization

The paper deals with the problematics of two-level single-output Boolean functions minimization which is important for many fields of science and technology including logic and control systems design, software engineering, artificial intelligence and others. In this work proposed solution, which is aimed to the production of prime implicants for particular Boolean functions, as the first step of Boolean functions minimization, is based on the use of designed hardware accelerator using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology. As the part of this work, input and output binary vectors encoding is proposed along with the combinational logic module, described using VHDL. Module is implemented into Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA KC705 Evaluation Kit evaluation board. Advantage of proposed hardware accelerator is in extremely small time complexity in comparison to the algorithms which are utilizing classical CPU based solutions. Another advantage is in constant time of prime implicants generation in case of the same number of input variables of Boolean function regardless of ON set cardinality. Disadvantage of the solution is that it is not possible to define don't care set and in space complexity which is rising quickly according to the number of input variables of Boolean function.

I. Introduction

Boolean functions minimization is the problem which solution is important for many fields of science and technology, including logic designs (PLA, FPGA, ASIC), control systems design, intelligent homes control, software engineering, artificial intelligence and others.