Decoding Formal 
HarGovind Singh
Formal Verification Architect Achieving Formal Sign-off: Key Learnings for Trainees and ExpertsMay 2nd, 2016 by HarGovind Singh
Formal sign-off is possible with today’s technology and methodology. But to get to formal sign-off takes an understanding of what is possible with formal verification, and an immersion in ongoing practice with formal methods and techniques. Moreover, early experiences with formal can determine later success with formal verification and sign-off. Even with a deep knowledge of a formal verification tool and extensive training from the tool vendor, exponential formal proof complexity often gets in the way of exhaustive coverage. Often what is needed is training in formal verification methodology and formal test planning that includes an exhaustive list of end-to-end checkers, as well as the mastering of formal techniques that help overcome complexity. Read the rest of Achieving Formal Sign-off: Key Learnings for Trainees and Experts Recap of the 2016 Oski Formal Puzzler – “Chessboard Challenge” (+ Video)March 24th, 2016 by Pippa Slayton
In December 2015, Oski challenged formal users to build the fastest testbench to solve our Oski Formal Puzzler – the Chessboard Challenge, Berkeley Math Circle Monthly Contest 8, 2011, proposed and designed by Evan O’Dorney, three-time Putnam Fellow. Jesse Bingham from Intel submitted the winning entry, as was announced during a presentation at the recent meeting of the Decoding Formal Club in Santa Clara, CA on February 29, 2016. This was an opportunity to promote the adoption of formal verification across the semiconductor industry, and share formal techniques by showing how they might be used to solve a fun formal puzzle. Read the rest of Recap of the 2016 Oski Formal Puzzler – “Chessboard Challenge” (+ Video) The Formal Verification Program Leader: An Emerging Role in VerificationFebruary 22nd, 2016 by Vigyan Singhal
Formal verification of hardware designs has been around for more than 25 years. Commercial tools, for example from AT&T Bell Labs and IBM, started appearing in the 1990s. It’s only recently that formal verification has been adopted into design and verification flows, due to a number of reasons. It’s harder to learn than simulation or emulation because of its complexity, and it takes time for a verification engineer to become proficient in using it. Formal verification experts typically learn 100s of different techniques over the course of their careers. Now that we are in the era of formal verification, an important new role is emerging –– the Formal Verification Program Leader (FV Program Leader). Read the rest of The Formal Verification Program Leader: An Emerging Role in Verification Oski Holiday Challenge – a Fun Formal PuzzlerDecember 9th, 2015 by Dr. Jin Zhang
“Jingle Bells”, “Silent Night”, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”… It has been several weeks since my youngest daughter started practicing for her upcoming violin concert. I grew up in China and missed out on the fun of Christmas festivities and holiday music. Now that we live in the United States and have had the full holiday experience, I learned that Santa Claus comes to town – two months early! With the holiday season upon us and reflecting on the past year, 2015 has been a very busy and rewarding time for Oski. The hard work put in by each of our colleagues is paying off – with the growing adoption of formal technology and formal sign-off methodology at many companies across the globe. Formal Verification is finally coming to town! Read the rest of Oski Holiday Challenge – a Fun Formal Puzzler Formal 2025: It’s Back to the Future!November 13th, 2015 by Pippa Slayton
The recent Decoding Formal Club meeting hosted by Oski Technology on October 21, 2015 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View celebrated the club’s 2nd anniversary with a “back to the future” twist. While many of the predictions in the movie “Back to Future Part II” did not come true on October 21, 2015, the day of “the future” to which Marty McFly and Doc Brown time travel in a flying silver DeLorean sports car, that didn’t deter us from inviting attendees from Apple, ARM, Arteris, Broadcom, Ericsson, Google, Imagination, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Palo Alto Networks, Qualcomm and others to make some timely predictions for formal verification in 2025. The group was comprised of formal experts with years of experience, as well as engineers who are new to formal verification, so the predictions for 2025 were daring, but quite possible. Close Win in Oski Deep Bounds 2015 Hardware Model Checking Competition for Norbert Manthey of TU, DresdenOctober 29th, 2015 by Pippa Slayton
This year’s Oski Deep Bound Track Hardware Model Checking Competition (HWMCC) was a thrillingly close contest that came down to just one benchmark design of more than 100 benchmarks. The winner was announced at the Hardware Model Checking Competition Report session of the annual Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design (FMCAD) Conference, held in Austin, Texas, on September 30, 2015. Winner Norbert Manthey of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and a graduate of TU Dresden, Germany, took the prized first place from runners up Alberto Griggio, and Marco Roveri, researchers at Fondazione Bruno Kessler, and graduates of the University of Trento, Italy. Happy Birthday, Decoding Formal!September 24th, 2015 by Pippa Slayton
On the radio yesterday, we heard that the song “Happy Birthday To You”, one of the most widely sung tunes in the world, was ruled by federal judge George H. King to finally be in the public domain! This welcome news seems to come at the right time, as Oski Technology plans to celebrate the second anniversary of the Decoding Formal Club at our quarterly meeting on October 21 at Computer History Museum, in Mountain View. Since it was founded in October 2013, the Decoding Formal Club has drawn the attention of engineers, designers and verification managers. In a relatively short time we have covered much ground, and become a forum where formal knowledge and experience can be shared among the growing community of formal enthusiasts. In turn, Oski’s featured presentations have covered many aspects of formal sign-off methodology: Bounded Proof, Abstraction Models, Formal Test Planning, End-to-End Checkers and Constraint Management. Formal Ensures Tight Working RelationshipsSeptember 9th, 2015 by Dr. Jin Zhang
Gabe Moretti of Chip Design used several points from Jin’s blog post below, in his recent article titled, “Design and Verification Need a Closer Relationship.” The article can be found at: http://bit.ly/1fGyXW2 Today, verification engineers have a whole arsenal in their tool kit in order to combat hidden bugs in the design. Different verification techniques render different working relationship with the designers. Formal verification is a white-box verification technique, which means formal engineers need to have a good understanding about the internals of the design in order to do effective formal verification. Therefore, formal engineers and RTL designers naturally have a much tighter working relationship than other disciplines. First, a sound verification methodology should allow equal contribution from all effective techniques, which includes leveraging the exhaustiveness of formal to sign-off on design blocks that are harder to verify with simulation. The block partition between formal and simulation should be clean to simplify the effort on both ends. To achieve that, formal engineers should participate in the architectural planning and exploration stage of design development in order to help influence decisions regarding design partition and block interface. A well-partitioned design with a clean interface will make the decision on where to apply formal, as well as the actual formal verification tasks, much easier. Oski on the Bay in San FranciscoAugust 12th, 2015 by Dr. Jin Zhang
EDA’s verification market segment is not the only place where something’s named for the Cal (University of California, Berkeley) mascot Oski. A Blue and Gold Fleet boat named Oski sails out of Pier 39 in San Francisco and takes visitors around the Bay and Alcatraz. When I saw the Oski pulling away from the pier, I couldn’t help but draw an analogy between Oski Technology’s mission and the choppy waters the boat was heading into on that sunny day. Sunny days and choppy waters are something verification engineers can face on a daily basis. Verification tasks are so challenging in today’s for system-on-chip (SoC) designs that verification alone takes more than 60% of the project cycle. What’s more, simulation alone for SoC designs will leave large holes for bugs to sneak through, all the way to silicon. The challenge of verification actually is more daunting than the choppy waters of San Francisco Bay. Unbroken, 73 Bugs Captured!June 19th, 2015 by Dr. Jin Zhang
The story of Louis Zamperini, as told by Laura Hillenbrand in “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption”, is a great testimony of the strength of human spirit. Going through unimaginable catastrophes, including drifting 47 days on the open sea with leaping sharks, thirst, starvation, and machine gun attack from a bomber plane, as well as enduring 3 years under severe and brutal conditions as a POW in Japan, Zamperini emerged unbroken with grace, humanity and love. This is such an inspiring story that when I thought about writing about Oski DAC 2015 “Break the Testbench” Challenge results, the word “unbroken” came to mind. While this is no comparison in its scale to the story of Zamperini, the word “unbroken” succinctly summarizes the challenge result. |
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