Abstract
This work proposes a fully BDD-based approach based on: mixing forward and backward traversals, dovetailing approximate and exact methods, adopting guided and partitioned searches, and using conjunctive decompositions and generalized-cofactor-based BDD simplifications. The method is exact, i.e., it does not produce false negatives or positives, and reaps relevant performance enhancements from an appropriate tradeoff among the component methodologies.
The resulting verification strategy is able, on one hand, to improve standard BDD-based algorithms, and, on the other hand, to compete with SAT-based tools on a broader range of circuit sizes.
We experimentally compare our approach with three state-of-the-art freely available techniques. The first and second ones are SAT-based strategies, i.e., bounded model checking implemented within the NuSMV and the VIS tools (using Chaff as SAT engine). The third one is a BDD-based methodology, i.e., approximate reachability don’t cares model checking implemented within the VIS tool. Results show interesting improvements in terms of both efficiency and power. They demonstrate how BDDs are able to accomplish larger verification tasks and to efficiently deal with high sequential depths.
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Cabodi, G., Nocco, S. & Quer, S. Are BDDs still alive within sequential verification?. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 7, 129–142 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-004-0172-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-004-0172-7