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Implicant, Prime Implicant, and Essential Prime Implicant

An implicant is a product term that implies the function F. A prime implicant (PI) is an implicant that cannot be combined with another to eliminate a variable. An essential prime implicant (EPI) is a PI that covers an output of the function that no other PI can cover alone. EPIs include one or more distinguished 1-cells, which are input combinations covered by only one PI. A minimal sum-of-products expression for a function F contains all the EPIs of F.

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383 views1 page

Implicant, Prime Implicant, and Essential Prime Implicant

An implicant is a product term that implies the function F. A prime implicant (PI) is an implicant that cannot be combined with another to eliminate a variable. An essential prime implicant (EPI) is a PI that covers an output of the function that no other PI can cover alone. EPIs include one or more distinguished 1-cells, which are input combinations covered by only one PI. A minimal sum-of-products expression for a function F contains all the EPIs of F.

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Rohan
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IMPLICANT,

PRIME IMPLICANT, and ESSENTIAL PRIME IMPLICANT




Any single 1 or group of 1's that can be grouped together on the Kmap of a function F represents a
product term (P) called an IMPLICANT. Thus P implies F, i.e. when P is 1, F is 1.

A PRIME IMPLICANT (PI) is a product term P that cannot be combined with another product term
to eliminate a variable. A P is a PI if removal of any literal from P results in a nonimplicant for F.
Therefore, a PI is minimal because it cannot be covered by a more reduced implicant with fewer
literals. Based on this line of thought, we note that:

A single 1 is a PI if it is not adjacent to any other 1's.



Two adjacent 1's form a PI if they are not (completely) contained by
any group of four adjacent 1's.

Four adjacent 1's form a PI if they are not (completely) contained by
any group of eight adjacent 1's.

The minimal sumofproducts expression for a function F consists of
some, BUT NOT NECESSARILY ALL, of the PIs of F.

A DISTINGUISHED 1CELL is an input combination that is covered by one PI only. In terms a Kmap,
distinguished 1cells are 1cells that can be grouped by only one PI.

An ESSENTIAL PRIME IMPLICANT (EPI) is a PI that covers an output of the function that no
combination of other PIs is able to cover. An EPI is a PI that includes one or more distinguished 1
cells. EPIs are important because a minimal sum contains all the EPIs of a function F.

For good examples, see http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mcnames/ECE171/Lectures/Lecture10.html
under the heading Karnaugh Maps.

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