AV-211

DIGITAL SYSTEMS – LOGIC DESIGN &

DEVICES
Lecture No 9

“MINTERMS & MAXTERMS”

Text Book: Chapter 2
Section: 2-3

Instructor: Wg Cdr Muhammad Ashraf

Number of Slides: 22

Avionics Engineering Department

 Class Objectives
• Learn about Boolean function expression in
terms of:
– Minterms
– Maxterms

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 Canonical Forms
• Useful to specify Boolean functions in a standard form:
– allows comparison for equality

• Boolean functions can be specified in terms of Minterms

& Maxterms

• Gives Canonical Forms of Boolean functions :

– Sum of Minterms (SOM)
– Product of Maxterms (POM)

• Need to learn about Minterms/Maxterms

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 Minterms
• Minterm
– PRODUCT or AND term, in which every variable is present in
either true or complemented form

– Two variables (X and Y) produce 4 combinations:

X Y, X Y, X Y, X Y
• four Minterms for two variables
• literal is complemented if corresponding bit of the binary
number is 0, and vice versa
• for n variables, 2n Minterms

– A Minterm represents exactly one combination of binary

variables in a truth table

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 Minterms
• Three binary variables X, Y, Z have 8 Minterms
• Each Minterm is a
PRODUCT term of
exactly 3 literals
• Each literal appears
only once in a term
• Symbol mj used for
Minterms

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 Minterms
• Truth table for all Minterms
• Minterm mj is 1 for input variable combination corresponding to
binary combination j, and 0 for all other combinations

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 Maxterms
• Maxterm
– SUM or OR term, in which every variable is present in either
true or complemented form

– Two variables (X and Y) produce 4 combinations:

X Y, X Y, X Y, X Y

• four Maxterms for two variables
• literal is complemented if corresponding bit of the binary
number is 1, and vice versa
• for n variables, 2n Maxterms

– A Maxterm represents exactly one combination of binary

variables in a truth table
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 Maxterms
• Three binary variables X, Y, Z have 8 Maxterms
• Each Maxterm is a
logical SUM of exactly
3 literals
• Each literal appears
only once in a term
• Symbol Mj is used for
Maxterms

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 Maxterms
• Truth table for all Maxterms
• Maxterm Mj is 0 for input variable combination corresponding to
binary combination j, and 1 for all other combinations

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 Minterm & Maxterm
Relationship
• The Minterms and Maxterms with the same subscript are
complements of each other
mj  M j and M j  mj
• Example:
– for j=3 and using DeMorgan’s Theorem ( X Y Z  X  Y  Z )

m3  XYZ  X  Y  Z  M 3

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 Standard Order
• Minterm/Maxterm variables are listed in standard order
– usually alphabetically
– in normal/complemented state

• For variables a, b, c:

Minterms: abc, abc, abc

Maxterms: (a+b+c ), ( a+b+c )
Terms : (b+a+c ) and (acb) - are NOT in Standard order
Terms : (a+c ) and (bc ) - do not contain all variables

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 Minterm & Maxterm Index
• A Minterm/Maxterm has an Index
– index associated with a binary number
– helps to determine if variable exists in true form or
complemented form

Index Minterm Maxterm

0 (00) xy x+y
1 (01) xy x+y
2 (10) xy x+y
3 (11) xy x+y

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Index Example: Four Variables

Index Binary Minterm Maxterm

i Pattern mi Mi
0 0000 abcd a+b+c+d
1 0001 abcd ?
3 0011 ? a+b+c+d
5 0101 abcd a+b+c+d
7 0111 ? a+b+c+d
10 1010 abcd a+b+c+d
13 1101 abcd ?
15 1111 abcd a+b+c+d
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 Expressing Boolean Functions
Algebraically
• Ay Boolean function can be expressed in terms of
Minterms or Maxterms
– by "ORing" the Minterms
• corresponding to "1" entries in the function table

– by "ANDing" the Maxterms

• corresponding to "0" entries in the function table

• Gives two canonical forms for stating a Boolean function:

– Sum of Minterms (SOM)
– Product of Maxterms (POM)

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 Canonical Sum of Minterms
• Any Boolean function can be expressed as SOM
– For Function Table:
• Minterms used are the terms corresponding to 1's
– For Algebraic Expressions:
• expand all terms to explicitly list all Minterms
• “AND” the term missing a variable ‘x’ with a term like ( x  x )
• Example: Implement the following function as SOM
f  x xy
Expand terms f  x( y  y)  x y
Distribute terms f  xy  x y  x y
Express as SOM f  m3  m2  m0
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 SOM: Example 1
• Example: Implement as Sum of Minterms (SOM):

F  a  bc
 a (b  b)(c  c )  bc (a  a ) expand terms
 (ab  ab)(c  c )  abc  abc
 c (ab  ab)  c (ab  ab)  abc  abc
 abc  abc  abc  abc  abc  abc
 abc  abc  abc  abc  abc remove duplicates
 m7  m5  m6  m4  m1 write as SOM
F  m1  m4  m5  m6  m7
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 SOM: Example 2
• Implement F in Minterm form: F(X,Y,Z)= m1 + m4 + m7
• The function is:
F ( X ,Y , Z )  XY Z  XY Z  XYZ

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 SOM: Example 3
• Implement F in Minterm form:
F(A,B,C,D,E)= m2 + m9 + m17 + m23
• Sol:
– Find the binary numbers corresponding to 2, 9, 17 & 23
– Write the respective Minterms and OR them together

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 Short-hand SOM Form
• From the previous example, we started with:
F  a  bc

• We ended up with:
F  m1  m4  m5  m6  m7

• The Sum of Minterms (SOM) can be denoted in the formal

shorthand:
F (a, b, c )   m (1,4,5,6,7)

• Index is used for each Minterm

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SUMMARY

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QUESTIONS ?

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 NEXT TIME

• Product of Maxterms (POM)

• Standard Forms:
• Sum of Products form (SOP)
• Product of Sums form (POS)

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