Current Trends In Hardware Verification And Automated Theorem Proving

Current Trends in Hardware Verification and Automated Theorem Proving

This report describes the partially completed correctness proof of the Viper 'block model'. Viper [7,8,9,11,23] is a microprocessor designed by W. J. Cullyer, C. Pygott and J. Kershaw at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Malvern, England, (henceforth 'RSRE') for use in safety-critical applications such as civil aviation and nuclear power plant control. It is currently finding uses in areas such as the de ployment of weapons from tactical aircraft. To support safety-critical applications, Viper has a particulary simple design about which it is relatively easy to reason using current techniques and models. The designers, who deserve much credit for the promotion of formal methods, intended from the start that Viper be formally verified. Their idea was to model Viper in a sequence of decreasingly abstract levels, each of which concentrated on some aspect ofthe design, such as the flow ofcontrol, the processingofinstructions, and so on. That is, each model would be a specification of the next (less abstract) model, and an implementation of the previous model (if any). The verification effort would then be simplified by being structured according to the sequence of abstraction levels. These models (or levels) of description were characterized by the design team. The first two levels, and part of the third, were written by them in a logical language amenable to reasoning and proof.

Theorem Proving in Higher Order Logics

Theorem Proving in Higher Order Logics

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Theorem Proving in Higher Order Logics (TPHOLs 2009), which was held during August 17-20, 2009 in Munich, Germany. TPHOLs covers all aspects of theorem proving in higher order logics as well as related topics in theorem proving and veri?cation. There were 55 papers submitted to TPHOLs 2009 in the full research c- egory, each of which was refereed by at least three reviewers selected by the ProgramCommittee. Of these submissions, 26 researchpapers and 1 proofpearl were accepted for presentation at the conference and publication in this v- ume. In keeping with longstanding tradition, TPHOLs 2009 also o?ered a venue for the presentation of emerging trends, where researchers invited discussion by means of a brief introductory talk and then discussed their work at a poster session. A supplementary proceedings volume was published as a 2009 technical report of the Technische Universit¨ at Munc ¨ hen. The organizers are grateful to David Basin, John Harrison and Wolfram Schulte for agreeing to give invited talks. We also invited four tool devel- ers to give tutorials about their systems. The following speakers kindly accepted our invitation and we are grateful to them: John Harrison (HOL Light), Adam Naumowicz (Mizar), Ulf Norell (Agda) and Carsten Schur ¨ mann (Twelf).