TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter introduces two standard forms of expressing Boolean functions, the minterms and maxterms, also known as standard products and standard sums respectively. A procedure is also presented to show how one can convert one form to the other.
In Chapter 5 we learned that a binary variable may appear either as A or A. Also, if two binary variables A and B are ANDed, the four (2 2=4) possible combinations are AB, [*] AB , AB , and AB , and each of these defines a distinct area in a Vern diagram [ ] as shown in Figure 6.1.
In Figure 6.1 the left circle is denoted as A, the right circle as B, the common area as AB, the area of circle A which excludes B as A B, the area of circle B which excludes A as AB, and the area outside the two circles as A B . These four terms are referred to as minterms or standard prod ucts where the word product here means the ANDing of these variables. In other words, a minterm is composed of two or more variables or their complements ANDed together.
In general, for n variables there are 2 n minterms designated as mj where the subscript j represents the decimal equivalent of the binary number of the minterm. Table 6.1 shows the 8 minterms...
