A flexible scheme for state assignment based on characteristics of the FSM

The authors present a novel scheme for state assignment based on the premise that there is a strong correlation between the FSM (finite state machine) characteristics and the state assignment technique to be used. Based on the nature of the FSM, one of four state assignment schemes is selected by the system. The selection of one of these techniques is done automatically by the system. An option is provided to further optimize the generated solution using simulated annealing. Results on MCNC benchmarks indicate that the flexible methodology for state assignment leads to area and delay values that are better in most cases than those obtained by using existing state assignment schemes.<>