Since we are limited to two values in the most primitive mutually exclusive value assertion domain we can't just add another value as we did in the Boolean logic example, so we have to encode another value. The intermediate value solution involves another level of encoding convention on top of the mutually exclusive assertion group encoding. As things stand so far, each data meaning is expressed with one data value on one wire. True is one wire and False is another wire. Now we will express each data meaning with two wires. True will be expressed with two wires and False will be expressed with two wires. encoded_DATA, encoded_INTERMEDIATE and encoded_NULL are expressed on these two wires with the following encoding.

DATA, DATA -> encoded_DATA

DATA, NULL -> encoded_INTERMEDIATE

NULL, DATA -> encoded_INTERMEDIATE

NULL, NULL -> encoded_NULL

As shown in Figure 12, each input to a gate is two wires and a single intermediate value gate consists of several threshold gates without hysteresis.

Figure 12. Intermediate encoded 2 input threshold 2 gate.

Starting with the intermediate value gate in an all NULL state with encoded_NULL values on the inputs and asserting an encoded_NULL value. If one DATA value is applied to A_1 the threshold 1 gate meets its threshold and will assert a DATA result value and the result value for the composite gate will assert DATA, NULL to express the encoded_INTERMEDIATE value. The result value remains encoded_INTERMEDIATE until all four input wires are DATA, which means that both inputs are presenting encoded_DATA values and there is a complete input data set, at which time the threshold 4 gate asserts a DATA value and the intermediate value gate asserts DATA, DATA to express the encoded_DATA value. As soon as one input wire becomes NULL the threshold 4 gate falls below its threshold and asserts NULL and the asserted result for the intermediate value gate is DATA, NULL expressing the encoded_INTERMEDIATE value. The encoded_INTERMEDIATE value is maintained until all the input wires become NULL at which time the threshold 1 gate asserts a NULL value and the result value for the composite gate is NULL, NULL expressing the encoded_NULL value.