Reference model based RTL verification: an integrated approach

We present an approach that makes reference model based formal verification both complete and practical in an industrial setting. This paper describes a novel approach to conduct this exercise, by seamlessly integrating formal equivalence verification (FEV) techniques within a verification flow suited to formal property verification (FPV). This enables us to take full advantage of the rich expressive power of temporal specification languages and help guide the FEV tools so as to enable reference model verification to an extent that was never attempted before. We have successfully applied our approach to challenging verification problems at Intel®.