On the design of cost-tables for realizing multiple-valued circuits

A heuristic is proposed for finding minimal cost-tables, for use in the design of multiple-valued logic circuits. It is an iterative approach, in which a good table of size t is composed of a good table of size t-1, etc. The authors analyze its performance, comparing it with three other heuristics. The importance of finding good cost-tables is demonstrated by an analysis that shows there is a wide variation in both cost-table performance and in the performance of heuristics for generating cost-tables. A study is made of linear cost, a general cost function of which two previously studied cost functions are special cases. It is shown that the minimal cost-table using one of the (infinitely many) linear cost functions is identical to a minimal cost-table using any other linear cost function. Two additional results on cost-table design are given