In general, existing logic synthesis methods for majority logic are limited to 3-input gates (maj-3). However, since majority gates with larger fan-in have been proposed for different emerging nanotechnologies, it has become important to consider such gates in the synthesis process. This paper proposes a novel majority logic synthesis flow where the gates can have an arbitrary number of inputs. The proposed approach is based on the relationship between majority and threshold logic functions. The proposed methods obtain an average reduction of 10% on the number of nodes when compared to a previous work that uses both maj-3 and maj-5 gates. When compared to the previous maj-3 synthesis, the average reduction on number of nodes is 14%.

This paper presents a novel and effective logic synthesis flow able to identify threshold logic functions during the technology mapping process. It provides more efficient logic covering, exploring also redundant cuts. Moreover, the proposed design flow takes into account different circuit area estimations, such as the sum of input weights and threshold values, the gate fanin and the number of threshold logic gates. As a result, the mapped circuits present a reduction up to 47% and 67% in area and logic depth, respectively, in comparison to the most recent related approaches.

In this paper, a straightforward and effective method to identify threshold logic function (TLF) is presented. Threshold logic is a promising alternative to conventional Boolean logic due to its suitability for emerging technologies, like memristors, quantum-dot cellular automata, resonant tunneling device, and spintronic devices. Identification and synthesis of TLF are essential tasks in a design flow based on such a logic strategy. The proposed method relies on irredundant sum-of-products Boolean function description form and exploits both ordering of variables and system of inequalities to assign the variable weights and the function threshold value. This is the first heuristic algorithm able to identify all threshold functions with up to six variables, being also more effective than other heuristic methods for functions with a larger number of variables. For functions obtained from k -cuts of benchmark circuits, experimental results demonstrated effectiveness near to 100% when compared to exact methods, even when the number of function variables increases. The execution time of the proposed approach is similar to related heuristic methods, being faster than integer linear programming-based algorithms.

This paper presents a novel approach to synthesize circuits based on threshold logic gates (TLGs). Emerging technologies, such as memristors, spintronics devices and tunneling diodes, are able to build this class of gates efficiently. For this reason, threshold logic is a promising alternative to conventional CMOS logic. The proposed approach is based on pruning non-threshold-logic cuts in order to limit the search space during technology mapping. As a result, both the number of TLGs and logic depth of the synthesized circuits are reduced. Experimental results have shown that, compared to the state-of-the-art methods, the TLG count is reduced by 8% and logic depth is reduced by 46%.

This paper presents an improved benchmark suite to jointly consider logic synthesis and physical design. Usually, benchmark circuits were provided by the physical design and the logic synthesis communities separately, according to their specific needs. The files provided for each benchmark set were restricted to the views necessary for the community. Additional specifications of design intents are necessary to express optimization goals that can be shared by logic synthesis and physical design communities, as circuits alone do not carry sufficient information to establish a benchmark with a clear optimization goal. In this paper, we describe benchmarks as a set composed of circuits, design intents (constraints), floorplan, target library and technology. Disregarding pieces of information provided for the benchmarks can change the associated criticality and affect the combined or isolated outcome of logic synthesis and physical design. The proposition of this benchmark suite brings attention to the problem of considering adequately the complete context of design intent throughout the flow.

In this paper, a novel method to synthesize circuits based on threshold logic gates (TLG) is proposed. Synthesis considering TLGs is quite relevant, since threshold logic has been revisited as a promising alternative to conventional CMOS integrated circuits due to its suitability to emerging technologies, such as tunneling diodes, memristors and spintronics devices. A constructive process is applied to generate optimized TLG networks taking into account multiple goals and design costs, including gate count, logic depth and number of interconnections. Experiments carried out over MCNC benchmark circuits have shown an average gate count reduction of circa 32%, reaching up to 54% in some cases, in comparison to related approaches.