The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 28, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 18, 1998
Jean-Michel Fernandez, Antibes, FR;
Gerard Tarroux, Villenneuve-Loubet, FR;
Candence Design Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and system reduces the complexity of functions within a Boolean network by breaking the network at certain nodes. Before the flattening phase of a technology independent optimization, the present invention estimates the on-set and off-set complexities of each node of the network. The complexities are estimated by considering the type of function represented by the node, the estimated complexities of any child nodes, and the number of variables in the support of the node. If a node's estimated complexity exceeds a defined complexity limit, then the network is preferably broken at that node. A new node of the same type as the complex node is created, and child nodes of the complex node are appended to the newly created node. In addition, an intermediate node is created as a child of the complex node and the child nodes are removed from the complex node. Removing the child nodes from the complex node reduces the complexity of the node and allows the minimization phase to better optimize the network.