Predictive runtime verification of multi-processor SoCs in SystemC

Concurrent interaction of multi-processor systems result in errors which are difficult to find. Traditional simulation- based verification techniques remove the concurrency information by arbitrary schedulings. We present a novel simulation-based technique for SystemC that preserves and exploits concurrency information. Our approach is unique in that we can detect potential errors in an observed execution, even if the error does not actually occur in that execution. We identify synchronization constructs in SystemC and develop predictive techniques for temporal assertion verification and deadlock detection. Our automated potential deadlock detection algorithm works on SystemC programs with semaphores, locks, wait and notify synchronizations and has less overhead compared with assertion verification. We patched SystemC kernel to implement our solution and obtained favorable results on industrial designs.