On Control Memory Minimization in Microprogrammed Digital Computers

The problem of minimizing the bit dimension of control memories in microprogrammed digital computers is considered in this paper. We start essentially with the same basic formulation as that of Grasselli and Montanari [2]. However, in order to minimize the computational requirements, we start directly with the set of maximum compatibility classes of microcommands whose number is usually small, and readily obtain near-minimal irredundant solutions. A minimal solution is then obtained from the irredundant solutions.