1. Personal Opinion on Future Role of Formal Verification in Hardware Industry
W. Paul
Universität Saarbrücken
wiss. Gesamtprojektleiter
bmb+f Projekt Verisoft

2. Verisoft 1:
2003: verified lab prototype (processor, 1.5 Mio gate equivalents)
3.5 Mio €/year
Partners: infineon,…
Mission (industrial)
Verify high end controllers
Mission (academic)
Verify stacks
Processor, devices, drivers, compiler, kernel, OS, client/server, TCP, real time….

3. Industrial Processor Verification OneSpin Solutions (2006)
Tools tightly coupled to production flow
Prove hundreds of properties by bounded model checking (> 90 % effort)
Combine to correctness proof in interactive prover (< 10 % effort)
Cheaper than conventional testing
New masks…
14 Mio € Venture Capital

4. Conclusions 1 Tools tightly coupled to production flow
It can be done; do it.
Cheaper than conventional testing
Use formal methods as soon as finding bugs by testing becomes slow
Everybody does it for FPUs.
among the most complex constructions in computer science
Learn to do it for more units

5. Verisoft 2 ( , planned)
Formal proof of kernel written in C with in line assembler code expected 2007 (Verisoft 1)
Mission (Industrial)
Verify and certify OS related product code,
Partners
Automotive
Avionics
Microsoft
High end processors

6. A Grand Embarassement
High end processors are flagship products of our field
We presently don‘t know how to define their ISA formally (i.e. don‘t know what exactly they are doing)
Necessary for complete formal verification
We better fix that asap

7. Mathematics Literacy in CS
Very much of applied computer science as a whole can be presented as a mathematical theory
Faster/more precise than usual hand waving
applied CS textbooks will have mix of text/pictures/math familiar from classical engineering disciplines

8. Conclusion 2 The Mathematically Clumsy CS Engineer
Endangered species
Near future: jobs moved off shore
But: off shore countries educate mathematically literate CS engineers…
Hire mathematically literate engineers as quickly as you can
Put pressure on universities to educate them