TR-IIS-02-011    PDF format

OVL Assertion-Checking of Embedded Softwares with Dense-Time Semantics

OVL (Open Verification library) is designed to become a standard assertion language of the EDA (Electronic Design Automation) industry and has been adopted by many companies. With OVL, verification process can blended seamlessly into the development cycles of complex systems. We investigate how to use OVL assertions for the verification of dense-time concurrent systems. We have designed a C-like language, called TC (timed C), for the description of real-time system with OVL assertions between code lines. We explain how to translate TC programs into optimized timed automata, how to translate OVL assertions into TCTL (Timed Computation-Tree Logic) formulae, and how to analyze assertions when not satisfied. The idea is realized in our translator RG (RED Generator).

In addition, we have developed several new verification techniques to take advantage of the information coming with OVL assertions for better verification performance. The new techniques have been incorporated in our high-performance TCTL model-checker RED 4.0. To demonstrate how our techniques can be used in industry projects, we report our experiments with the L2CAP (Logic Link Control and Adaptation Layer Protocol) of BlueTooth specification.

keywords: assertions, specification, state-based, event-driven, model-checking , verification