DCIT

203
DIGITAL AND LOGIC SYSTEM DESIGN
SESSION 4 – QUINE McCLUSKEY TECHNIQUE

Lecturer: Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz

Email: adwumfour@ug.edu.gh
Mobile: 0260541219

UNIVERSITY OF GHANA
College of Education
College of Education
School
School ofofContinuing
Continuingandand Distance
Distance Education
Education
2021/2022
2014/2015 – -2016/2017
2022/2023
 QUINE MCCLUSKEY METHOD

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 2

 COURSE OVERVIEW

This session considers the Quine McCluskey minimization

technique also known as the Tabular method. This provides
an alternative to the Kmap and allows for minimization of
function with large number of variables.

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 3

 SESSION OUTCOME

At the end of the session, the student should be able to:

1. Obtain knowledge on logic functions
2. Understand prime implicants and essential prime implicants
3. Understand the Quine McCluskey (QM) technique
4. Apply the QM technique to simplify logic functions

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 4

 KEY TOPICS

The key topics to be covered in the session include:

q Implicants, prime implicants and essential
prime implicants
q Quine McCluskey Algorithm
q Quine McCluskey table
q Prime Implicant table
q Derivation of final expression
Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 5
 READING LIST

S. Salivahanan & S. Arivazhagan (2018), Digital Circuits and Design.

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 6

QUINE McCluskey MINIMIZATION TECHNIQUE

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 7

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

• Make the group of adjacent 1s (2,4,8…)

• Try to cover all the 1s using mininum number of
groups
• Overlapping of groups is allowed
• Consider those minterms individually, which
cannot be grouped with other minterms

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 8

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

• Implicant
A group of 1s or single 1, which are adjacent and can
be grouped in the k-map

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 9

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

Prime Implicant
• The largest group of 1s which can be covered in
the k-map
• Not fully covered by any other group

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 10

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 11

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 12

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

Essential Prime Implicant (EPI)

• It is the prime implicant where at least one
Minterms or 1 is not covered by any other prime
implicant
• The essential prime implicants are always part of
the minimal expression

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 13

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 14

Prime Implicants and Essential Prime implicants

Finding the minimal solution / expression

• Find all the EPI and add them in the solution
• Determine the Minterms not covered by EPI
• Include the remaining Minterms using the non-EPI

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 15

QUINE McCLUSKEY MINIMIZATION TECHNIQUE

• Also known as the tabulation method is used to

minimize the Boolean functions.
• It simplifies Boolean expression into the
simplified form using prime implicants.
• This method is convenient to simplify Boolean
expressions with more than 4 input variables

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 16

 Steps for Quine McCluskey Method

Step 1: Arrange the given Minterms according to the

number of ones present in their binary representation in
ascending order.
Step 2: Take the Minterms from the continuous group if
there is only a one-bit change to make match pair.
Step 3: Place the ‘-‘ symbol where there is a bit change
accordingly and keep the remaining bits the same.
Step 4: Repeat steps 2 to 3 until we get all prime
implicants (when all the bits present in the table are
different).
Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 17
 Steps for Quine McCluskey Method

Step 5: Make a prime implicant table that consists of the

prime implicants (obtained Minterms) as rows and the
given Minterms (given in problem) as columns.
Step 6: Place ‘1’ in the Minterms (cell) which are covered by
each prime implicant.
Step 7: Observe the table, if the Minterms is covered by
only one prime implicant then it is an essential prime
implicant.
Step 8: Add the essential prime implicants to the simplified
Boolean function.
Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 18
 Steps for Quine McCluskey Method

Example:
Simplify the function below using the Tabular method
F(X,Y Z,W) =∑!(0,1,3,7,8,9,11,15)

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 19

 Steps for Quine McCluskey Method

Obtain the binary representation of the Minterms

X Y Z W
0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 1
3 0 0 1 1
7 0 1 1 1
8 1 0 0 0
9 1 0 0 1
11 1 0 1 1
15 1 1 1 1
Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 20
Step 1: Arrange the given Minterms according to the number of
ones present in their binary representation in ascending order.

Group Minterm X Y Z W
0 m0 0 0 0 0

1 m1 0 0 0 1
m8 1 0 0 0

2 m3 0 0 1 1
m9 1 0 0 1
1 0 0 1
3 m7 0 1 1 1
m11 1 0 1 1
4 m15 1 1 1 1
Step 2: Take the Minterms from the continuous group if there is
only a one-bit change to make their pair.
Step 3: Place the ‘-‘ symbol where there is a bit change accordingly
and keep the remaining bits the same.
.
.
STEP 2 AND 3

Group Matched pairs X Y Z W

m0 –m1 0 0 0 -
0 m0 –m8 - 0 0 0
m1 –m3 0 0 - 1
1 m1 –m9 - 0 0 0
m8 –m9 1 0 0 -
m3 –m7 0 - 1 1
2 m3 –m11 - 0 1 1
m9 –m11 1 0 - 1
3 m7 –m15 - 1 1 1
m11 –m15 1 - 1 1
.
STEP 4

Group Matched pairs X Y Z W

m0 –m1 - m8 –m9 - 0 0 -
!
0 𝑌𝑍
m0 –m8 -m1 –m9 - 0 0 -
m1 –m3-m9 –m11 - 0 - 1
1 !
𝑌𝑊 PI
m1 –m9 -m3 –m11 - 0 - 1
m3 –m7 -m11 –m15 - - 1 1
2 Z𝑊
m3 –m11-m7 –m15 - - 1 1
Step 5: Make a prime implicant table that consists of the
prime implicants (obtained Minterms) as rows and the
given Minterms (given in problem) as columns.
Step 6: Place ‘1’ in the Minterms (cell) which are covered by
each prime implicant.
Step 7: Observe the table, if the Minterms is covered by
only one prime implicant then it is an essential to prime
implicant.

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 25

 PRIME IMPLICANTS

PI Minterms Given Minterms

Involved 0 1 3 7 8 9 11 15

!𝒁
𝒀 0, 1, 8, 9 X X X X

!𝑾
𝒀 1, 3, 9, 11 X X X X

ZW 3, 7, 11 , 15 X X X X

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 26

Step 8: Add the essential prime implicants to the simplified
Boolean function.

,𝑪
F= 𝑩 , +CD

Dwumfour Abdullai Aziz Slide 27