Logic Simplifier

The general problem is very hard to solve, because of all the constraints, and unknown cost function.

Simple circuits can be optimized by hand. If they get too difficult for that, you probably shouldn't use discrete gates anyway. Instead, look for programmable logic, or, if speed permits, a microcontroller.

The programmable logic vendors have free software to perform these optimizations. They generally do a good job, but are of course geared towards their own parts. Also, these programs can be big and take a while to learn to use.

Is there any application that simplifies a logic circuit? i.e., finds the simplest way to to represent the logic where simplest could be minimum number of gates or contrained number(say, trying to find minimum number of logic ic's0, etc..

Thanks, Jon

Actually I jsut found a program called Minilog that seems to do just that. Took me about 5 mins to get my problem solved. (I did it by hand and got the same solution)

Its not the most user friendly program but did the job.

Well, it doesn't do everything I want but does do a lot. (doesn't minimize w.r.t ic's and doesn't seem to optimize vs minimal gates but does give enough so that it can be done by hand to some degree)

You mean Karnaugh minimization?

he

The Wikipedia article at

thm describes a web based application, based on the Quine-McCluskey method. I haven't tried it, but it might be worth a look. It's nice to meet a Jon who knows how to spell his first name correctly :-) Regards, Jon

for a karnaugh map minimizer (GPL)

Well, not specifically. Any method that can simplify will work.

The Wikipedia article at

describes a web based application, based on the Quine-McCluskey method. I haven't tried it, but it might be worth a look. It's nice to meet a Jon who knows how to spell his first name correctly :-) Regards, Jon

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Yes, I saw that and it lead me to minilog which solved my problem. Basically I put in the truth table and it spat out the logic equations and I minimized them a bit more by hand simply by factoring. e.g., it gave me something like abc + aed and I wrote it as a(bc + ed) which let me go from a 3-input to a 2 input.

Of course it was more complicated than that but basically was a simple enough problem that I could work it into some gates that I had but it would be nice to farther have contraints so that it would try to rewrite the equations in terms of those gates...

In fact it shouldn't be that hard as its just a matter of factoring and substituion of identities and probably could be done by brute force for small problems.

Thanks, Jon

cool. Looks like it is more user friendly than minilog.

Says "freeware". Any restrictions on usability?

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
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Problem here, that I see, is that I can't do more than one output at a time ;/ Not a big deal though and probably can be modified since I can get at the source. (just a matter of extending the user interface)

The product of sums is a nice function as it helps minimize the number of gates ;)

Found this which looks cool at first glance:

Actually looks like it does exactly what I wanted originally(shows schematic and lets you choose gate types... doesn't minimize w.r.t to specific ic set though but thats no big deal)

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

So far so good. It does seem free as it says. It crashed once though.

It lets you view the schematic as well as draw it. It will also tell you how many gate packages are required.