Improving characteristics of LUT-based Mealy FSMs

Practically, any digital system includes sequential blocks represented using a model of finite state machine (FSM). It is very important to improve such FSM characteristics as the number of logic elements used, operating frequency and consumed energy. The paper proposes a novel technology-dependent design method targeting a decrease in the number of look-up table (LUT) elements and their levels in logic circuits of FPGA-based Mealy FSMs. It produces FSM circuits having three levels of logic blocks. Also, it produces circuits with regular systems of interconnections between the levels of logic. The method is based on dividing the set of internal states into two subsets. Each subset corresponds to a unique part of an FSM circuit. Only a single LUT is required for implementing each function generated by the first part of the circuit. The second part is represented by a multi-level circuit. The proposed method belongs to the group of two-fold state assignment methods. Each internal state is encoded as an element of the set of states and as an element of some of its subsets. A binary state assignment is used for states corresponding to the first part of the FSM circuit. The one-hot assignment is used for states corresponding to the second part. An example of FSM synthesis with the proposed method is shown. The experiments with standard benchmarks are conducted to analyze the efficiency of the proposed method. The results of experiments show that the proposed approach leads to diminishing the number of LUTs in the circuits of rather complex Mealy FSMs having more than 15 internal states. The positive property of this method is a reduction in energy consumption (without any overhead cost) and an increase in operating frequency compared with other investigated methods.