Property checking via structural analysis

Abstract

This paper describes a structurally-guided framework for the decomposition of a verification task into subtasks, each solved by a specialized algorithm for overall efficiency. Our contributions include the following: (1) a structural algorithm for computing a bound of a statetransition diagram’s diameter which, for several classes of netlists, is sufficiently small to guarantee completeness of a bounded property check; (2) a robust backward unfolding technique for structural target enlargement: from the target states, we perform a series of compose-based preimage computations, truncating the search if resource limitations are exceeded; (3) similar to frontier simplification in symbolic reachability analysis, we use induction via don’t cares for enhancing the presented target enlargement. In many practical cases, the verification problem can be discharged by the enlargement process; otherwise, it is passed in simplified form to an arbitrary subsequent solution approach. The presented techniques are embedded in a flexible verification framework, allowing arbitrary combinations with other techniques. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the described methods at solving and simplifying practical verification problems.