Synthesis of reversible logic

Abstract

A function is reversible if each input vector produces a unique output vector. Reversible functions find applications in low power design, quantum computing, and nanotechnology. Logic synthesis for reversible circuits differs substantially from traditional logic synthesis. In this paper, we present the first practical synthesis algorithm and tool for reversible functions with a large number of inputs. It uses positive-polarity Reed-Muller decomposition at each stage to synthesize the function as a network of Toffoli gates. The heuristic uses a priority queue based search tree and explores candidate factors at each stage in order of attractiveness. The algorithm produces near-optimal results for the examples discussed in the literature. The key contribution of the work is that the heuristic finds very good solutions for reversible functions with a large number of inputs.