An efficient divide and conquer algorithm for exact hazard free logic minimization

Abstract

In this paper we introduce the first divide and conquer algorithm that is capable of exact hazard-free logic minimization in a constructive way. We compare our algorithm with the method of Dill and Nowick (1992), which was the only known method for exact hazard-free minimization. We show that our algorithm is much faster than the method proposed by Dill and Nowick by avoiding a significant part of the search space. We argue that the proposed algorithm is a promising framework for the development of efficient heuristic algorithms.