The realization of finite state machines by decomposition and the principal lattice of partitions of a submodular function

Abstract

In this paper, some problems that arise in the realization of finite state machines (FSM) are shown to be strongly related to the theory of submodular functions. Specifically, we use the idea of the principal lattice of partitions of a submodular function to develop approximation algorithms for minimizing the "cost" of realization of an FSM through a decomposition strategy. (C) 2003