Proceedings Of The Sixth International Workshop On The Acl2 Theorem Prover And Its Applications

Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on the ACL2 Theorem Prover and its Applications

Provably Correct Systems

As computers increasingly control the systems and services we depend upon within our daily lives like transport, communications, and the media, ensuring these systems function correctly is of utmost importance. This book consists of twelve chapters and one historical account that were presented at a workshop in London in 2015, marking the 25th anniversary of the European ESPRIT Basic Research project ‘ProCoS’ (Provably Correct Systems). The ProCoS I and II projects pioneered and accelerated the automation of verification techniques, resulting in a wide range of applications within many trades and sectors such as aerospace, electronics, communications, and retail. The following topics are covered: An historical account of the ProCoS project Hybrid Systems Correctness of Concurrent Algorithms Interfaces and Linking Automatic Verification Run-time Assertions Checking Formal and Semi-Formal Methods Provably Correct Systems provides researchers, designers and engineers with a complete overview of the ProCoS initiative, past and present, and explores current developments and perspectives within the field.

Design and Verification of Microprocessor Systems for High-Assurance Applications

Microprocessors increasingly control and monitor our most critical systems, including automobiles, airliners, medical systems, transportation grids, and defense systems. The relentless march of semiconductor process technology has given engineers exponentially increasing transistor budgets at constant recurring cost. This has encouraged increased functional integration onto a single die, as well as increased architectural sophistication of the functional units themselves. Additionally, design cycle times are decreasing, thus putting increased schedule pressure on engineers. Not surprisingly, this environment has led to a number of uncaught design flaws. Traditional simulation-based design verification has not kept up with the scale or pace of modern microprocessor system design. Formal verification methods offer the promise of improved bug-finding capability, as well as the ability to establish functional correctness of a detailed design relative to a high-level specification. However, widespread use of formal methods has had to await breakthroughs in automated reasoning, integration with engineering design languages and processes, scalability, and usability. This book presents several breakthrough design and verification techniques that allow these powerful formal methods to be employed in the real world of high-assurance microprocessor system design.