Abstract
We present an interval-based temporal logic that permits the rigorous specification of a variety of hardware components and facilitates proving properties such as correctness of implementation. Conceptual levels of circuit operation ranging from detailed quantitative timing and signal propagation up to functional behavior are integrated in a unified way.
After giving some motivation for reasoning about hardware, we present the propositional and first-order syntax and semantics of the temporal logic. In addition we illustrate techniques for describing signal transitions as well as for formally specifying and comparing a number of delay models. Throughout the discussion, the formalism provides a means for examining such concepts as device equivalence and internal states.
This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under a Graduate Fellowship, Grants MCS79-09495 and MCS81-11586, by DARPA under Contract N00039-82-C-0250, and by the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Grant AFOSR-81-0014.
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Halpern, J., Manna, Z., Moszkowski, B. (1983). A hardware semantics based on temporal intervals. In: Diaz, J. (eds) Automata, Languages and Programming. ICALP 1983. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 154. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0036915
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0036915
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