Hybrid designs generating maximum-length sequences

Two hybrid schemes for the design of maximum-length sequence generators (MLSGs) are presented. Compared to an n-stage maximum-length LFSR (for generating 2/sup n/-1 nonzero distinct states) that uses m exclusive-or (XOR) gates, this hybrid MLSG will use exactly (m+1)/2 XOR gates if its characteristic polynomial meets certain requirements. For applications such as exhaustive testing, this hybrid MLSG is then reconfigured to include the all-zero state. It is shown that the reconfiguration is very simple and the hardware overhead is low.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>