2004 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Synchronization-at-Retirement for Pipeline Verification
Authors : Mark D. Aagaard, Nancy A. Day, Robert B. Jones
Published in: Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Included in: Professional Book Archive
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Much automatic pipeline verification research of the last decade has been based on some form of “Burch-Dill flushing” [BD94]. In this work, we study synchronization-at-retirement, an alternative formulation of correctness for pipelines. In this formulation, the proof obligations can also be verified automatically but have significantly-reduced verification complexity compared to flushing. We present an approach for systematically generating invariants, addressing one of the most difficult aspects of pipeline verification. We establish by proof that synchronization-at-retirement and the Burch-Dill flushing correctness statements are equivalent under reasonable side conditions. Finally, we provide experimental evidence of the reduced complexity of our approach for a pipelined processor with ALU operations, memory operations, stalls, jumps, and branch prediction.