The multimode mean field annealing (MM-MFA) approach is introduced as an ef
ficient tool to design digital filters with discrete coefficients, each imp
lemented as a sum of signed power-of-two terms and additional general hardw
are constraints, As an application example demonstrating the potential of t
he new method, we consider the design of a linear phase nonrecursive finite
impulse response (FIR) filter with a least squares criterion and minimum n
umber of power-of-two terms.