April 25, 2005 -- Using the right methodology for applying and using products within a design project is critical to getting a high return on investment (ROI). This is especially true in emerging areas such as formal analysis. Formal analysis holds the promise of reducing testbench development and simulation cycles while improving design verification. Formal analysis uses sophisticated algorithms to conclusively prove or disprove that a design behaves as desired for all possible operating states. Desired behavior is not expressed in a traditional testbench, but rather as a set of assertions. Formal analysis does not require user-developed test vectors, but instead analyzes all legal input sequences concurrently and automatically.

When applied correctly, formal analysis improves productivity and reduces time to market. With formal analysis, many bugs can be found quickly and very early in the design process without the need to develop large sets of test vectors or random test generators.

Furthermore, because of its exhaustive nature, formal analysis improves quality by finding corner-case bugs often missed by traditional testbench driven verification. The dual benefits of increased productivity and increased quality are driving the adoption of formal analysis into the design flows of many companies.

By Paul Hylander, Axel Scherer, and Ramesh Mayiladuthurai. (Hylander is an Architect, Scherer is Senior Member of Consulting Staff and Mayiladuthurai is Technical Marketing Manager at Cadence Design Systems, Inc.)