An approach for functional decomposition applied to state-based designs

This paper presents a new approach for functional decomposition of complex systems by applying and enhancing the concepts of clique-decomposition and superstate formation. This approach can be utilized by graphs and state-based software or hardware designs. This method extends the design flow process by automatically extracting states from an existing design and decomposing the states into submodules. The automatic state extraction can be performed either using an original tool or the existing Debussy nState tool. This method has been applied successfully to graphs and state-based Verilog programs, as illustrated by examples in this paper. Furthermore, the complexity analysis shows the underlying algorithm executes well.