Summary: Efficient Coverage Directed State Space
Search \Lambda
Malay K. Ganai Adnan Aziz
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The University of Texas, Austin
malay---adnan@ece.utexas.edu
Abstract
We develop techniques for efficiently searching the state space of control domi­
nated hardware designs. Heuristics are used to guide the search to uncovered por­
tions of the state space; mechanisms employed include adaptive random simulation,
BDD subsetting, and interspersing symbolic methods with simulation. Experiments
demonstrate that our procedures result in substantially more coverage than conven­
tional verification strategies.
Keywords: Formal verification, coverage, invariant checking, BDDs, adaptive search
1 Introduction
In this paper we are concerned with the problem of design verification; specifically, the
problem of invariant checking over gate­level designs. Traditionally, designs have been
verified by extensive simulation. A model is built (in software or hardware), and monitors
may be added to check for bad behavior. Large numbers of test inputs are applied to this
model; these tests are generated by (possibly biased) random test pattern generators, or

Source: Aziz, Adnan - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences