Finite state machine decomposition using multiway partitioning

The problem of finite-state-machine decomposition into a number of smaller submachines is addressed. The number of submachines is decided by the algorithm on the basis of a partition of the outputs. The problem of determining the internal states in each submachine is formulated as a multiway partitioning of the original states using an m-way graph partitioning algorithm described herein. The results show an average of 39% decrease in delay and a small decrease in area for two-level implementations