If you are someone who does formal verification and is looking for a chance to talk over the challenges with others who do similar work, Oski Technology has something that may be of interest to you. Starting this month in Silicon Valley, the company is kicking off its Oski Decoding Formal Club. The inaugural meeting took place at the Computer History Museum on October 10th, and was lead by company CEO Vigyan Singhal.
Over lunch, he presented a 45-minute overview titled, “Using Bounded Proofs in Formal Sign-off.” Singhal noted during his talk that it’s the reality today that formal is expensive and returns “low bang for the bucks.” He insisted, however, that if there were places to learn more about how to apply formal verification, and how to build a productive formal team, the technology would be more widely applied and its destiny more quickly fulfilled as an extremely effective technique for use end-to-end throughout the design process.
Following Singhal’s presentation, the 20+ people in attendance (representing 10 companies) were each given time in a relaxed, roundtable environment to share their experiences and/or frustrations with formal. The companies included Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, HiSilicon, Memoir Systems, Microsoft, Nvidia, Palo Alto Networks, Qualcomm, and a startup. In other words, companies both big and small were represented and the resulting conversation was very interesting. It was clear as the talking stick was handed around, that some practitioners were very confident and sure of themselves, while others were relieved to know they’re not the only ones who struggle with formal.
