A Methodology for Large-Scale Hardware Verification

  • Authors:
  • Mark Aagaard;Robert B. Jones;Thomas F. Melham;John W. O'Leary;Carl-Johan H. Seger

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • FMCAD '00 Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design
  • Year:
  • 2000

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Abstract

We present a formal verification methodology for datapath-dominated hardware. This provides a systematic but flexible framework within which to organize the activities undertaken in large-scale verification efforts and to structure the associated code and proof-script artifacts. The methodology deploys a combination of model checking and lightweight theorem proving in higher-order logic, tightly integrated within a general-purpose functional programming language that allows the framework to be easily customized and also serves as a specification language. We illustrate the methodology--which has has proved highly effective in large-scale industrial trials--with the verification of an IEEE-compliant, extended precision floating-point adder.