Facta Univ. Ser.: Elec. Energ., vol. 23, No. 3, December 2010, pp. 273-286

Synthesis of Reversible Circuits for Large Reversible Functions

Nouraddin Alhagi, Maher Hawash, and Marek Perkowski

Abstract: This paper presents a new algorithm MP (multiple pass) to synthesize large reversible binary circuits without ancilla bits. The well-known MMD algorithm for synthesis of reversible circuits requires to store a truth table (or a Reed-Muller - RM transform) as a 2n vector to represent a reversible function of n variables. This representation prohibits synthesis of large functions. However, in MP we do not store such an exponentially growing data structure. The values of minterms are calculated in MP dynamically, one-by-one, from a set of logic equations that specify the reversible circuit to be designed. This allows for synthesis of large scale reversible circuits (30-bits), which is not possible with any existing algorithm. In addition, our unique multi-pass approach where the circuit is synthesized with various, yet specific, minterm orders yields quasi-optimal solution. The algorithm returns a description of the quasi-optimal circuit with respect to gate count or to its ``quantum cost". Although the synthesis process in MP is relatively slower, the solution is found in real-time for smaller circuits of 8 bits or less.

Keywords: Multiple pass algorithm, Reed-Muller transform, Miller, Maslov and Dueck algorithm, reversible circuits.

2marek.pdf