Verifying dynamic properties of nonlinear mixed-signal circuits via efficient SMT-based techniques

The pressing need for the verification of analog and mixed-signal (AMS) designs is driven by increased design complexity and the integration of such circuits into SoCs. However, verification of AMS circuits remains as a significant challenge. We propose a methodology that leverages SMT-based Satisfiability techniques to tackle the challenges arising from the inherent analog and/or hybrid natures of AMS systems. We demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed methodology on conservative verification of dynamic properties of nonlinear AMS circuits.

[1]  Lars Hedrich,et al.  Advanced methods for equivalence checking of analog circuits with strong nonlinearities , 2010, Formal Methods Syst. Des..

[2]  Jean-Marc Bernard,et al.  An introduction to the imprecise Dirichlet model for multinomial data , 2005, Int. J. Approx. Reason..

[3]  Bruce H. Krogh,et al.  Formal verification of hybrid systems using CheckMate: a case study , 2000, Proceedings of the 2000 American Control Conference. ACC (IEEE Cat. No.00CH36334).

[4]  Sofiène Tahar,et al.  Formal verification of analog designs using MetiTarski , 2009, 2009 Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design.

[5]  Chris J. Myers,et al.  Analog/Mixed-Signal Circuit Verification Using Models Generated from Simulation Traces , 2010, Int. J. Found. Comput. Sci..

[6]  Martin Fränzle,et al.  Efficient Solving of Large Non-linear Arithmetic Constraint Systems with Complex Boolean Structure , 2007, J. Satisf. Boolean Model. Comput..

[7]  Peng Li,et al.  On behavioral model equivalence checking for large analog/mixed signal systems , 2010, 2010 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD).

[8]  Joel R. Phillips,et al.  First steps towards SAT-based formal analog verification , 2009, 2009 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design - Digest of Technical Papers.

[9]  Lars Hedrich,et al.  Model checking algorithms for analog verification , 2002, DAC '02.

[10]  Thomas A. Henzinger,et al.  The theory of hybrid automata , 1996, Proceedings 11th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science.

[11]  Matthias Althoff,et al.  Formal verification of phase-locked loops using reachability analysis and continuization , 2011, 2011 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD).

[12]  Sofiène Tahar,et al.  Formal verification of analog and mixed signal designs: A survey , 2008, Microelectron. J..

[13]  Rob A. Rutenbar,et al.  Towards formal verification of analog designs , 2004, IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design, 2004. ICCAD-2004..

[14]  Rob A. Rutenbar,et al.  Verifying analog oscillator circuits using forward/backward abstraction refinement , 2006, Proceedings of the Design Automation & Test in Europe Conference.

[15]  John K Kruschke,et al.  Bayesian data analysis. , 2010, Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science.