BDD minimization for approximate computing

Abstract

We present Approximate BDD Minimization (ABM) as a problem that has application in approximate computing. Given a BDD representation of a multi-output Boolean function, ABM asks whether there exists another function that has a smaller BDD representation but meets a threshold w.r.t. an error metric. We present operators to derive approximated functions and present algorithms to exactly compute the error metrics directly on the BDD representation. An experimental evaluation demonstrates the applicability of the proposed approaches.