Generalization of Consensus Theory and Application to the Minimization of Boolean Functions

Given two implicants of a Boolean function, we can, by performing their consensus, find a third implicant. This operation has been used for finding the prime implicants of a Boolean function. In this paper, the consensus is extended from two to any number of terms. A property of these generalized consensus relations leads to a systematic way of finding them. It is shown that any prime implicant of a Boolean function is a generalized consensus; therefore the algorithm for the determination of the consensus relations can be used for finding the prime implicants. This new method is simpler than the usual process of iterative consensus. It is also shown in this paper that consensus theory can be used for finding the minimal sums of a Boolean function. The methods are applicable for any Boolean function, with or without don't care conditions, with a single or a multiple output.