On the expressive power of OKFDDs

Ordered Decision Diagrams (ODDs) as a means for the representation of Boolean functions are used in many applications in CAD. Depending on the decomposition type, various classes of ODDs have been defined, among them being the Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (OBDDs), the Ordered Functional Decision Diagrams (OFDDs) and the Ordered Kronecker Functional Decision Diagrams (OKFDDs). Based on a formalization of the concept decomposition type we first investigate all possible decomposition types and prove that already OKFDDs, which result from the application of only three decomposition types, result in the most general class of ODDs. We then show from a (more) theoretical point of view that the generality of OKFDDs is really needed. We prove several exponential gaps between specific classes of ODDs, e.g. between OKFDDs on the one side and OBDDs, OFDDs on the other side. Combining these results it follows that a restriction of the OKFDD concept to subclasses, such as OBDDs and OFDDs as well, results in families of functions which lose their efficient representation.