Formal verification uses mathematical techniques to show if a design complies with one or more formal criteria or attributes. This method is used in the design of computer hardware, particularly integrated circuits (IC) and software systems.
The most fundamental need for the chip is the design function's accurate implementation. Hence formal verification is required to ensure the accuracy of the chip design. A successful verification effort may significantly reduce the semiconductor design cycle. Formal verification is distinct from simulation, which is crucial for implementing integrated circuits.
As design sizes and simulation times have increased, verification teams have explored techniques to reduce the number of vectors required for system operation to acceptable coverage. Formal verification may be completed quickly because it is not necessary to assess every potential state to demonstrate that a given logic fulfills a given set of properties under all circumstances. However, the kind of reasoning used and how it is applied significantly impact how well it performs.
Furthermore, formal verification is a systematic process that utilizes mathematical reasoning to assess whether the intended purpose (RTL) has been achieved. Since formal verification can thoroughly check all potential input values, it can solve simulation-related problems.
If RTL designs might suffer severe (and expensive) error escapes (Pentium FDIV) because of insufficient corner case coverage during simulation testing.
A new RTL module was designed, and the designer wished to simulate it for testing purposes without having to spend weeks building a testbench.
Parts of the RTL prototyping were tweaked to pass synthesis, and weeks of simulation were spent to ensure that no real changes were made to its functionality.
The fact that fresh faults keep cropping up in the later phases of verifying the design shows that the previous stage's random simulations did not offer sufficient coverage.
Modified the design's control register specifications, which required extensive simulation to verify that the RTL modifications worked as intended.
