A novel collaborative scheme of simulation and model checking for system properties verification

Abstract

The conventional methods cannot easily handle the verification task of increasingly complex hardware designs. This research proposes a novel collaborative scheme for verifying functional properties of a design. The classified properties are designed for three verification engines, i.e. module simulation, BDD-based (Binary Decision Diagram) model checking and CDFG (Control Data Flow Graph) static analysis. The cooperative scheme is performed on a refined model from CDFG structure and three methods are employed to complete the properties verification interactively and collectively. For speeding up the verification process, optimization techniques are introduced, such as variables reordering, properties pre-grouping, and model refining. The benchmarks ITC’99 (International Test Conference) are used to demonstrate the validity and practicality of the collaborative scheme.