Efficient state encoding algorithm based on hypercube construction

Presents a new, efficient algorithm for the state encoding of finite-state machines which minimises the area of the combinational logic. The encoding problem is modelled as the construction of a hypercube, where the encoding of each state is given by the co-ordinate of the corresponding vertex of the D-dimensional Boolean hypercube [D=log₂(number of states)]. The proposed state encoding scheme consists of computing the encoding affinities between states and placing states with strong encoding affinities closely in the hypercube. The algorithms are implemented as a program called SECH (State Encoding by Construction of Hypercube). Experimental results show that SECH yields more than 20% better results than NOVA (Villa et al., 1990) in a comparable CPU time, and about 10% better results than NOVA in about 1/200 of the CPU time