Exploiting the potential of diagrams in guiding hardware reasoning

Formal methods promises designers increased assurance in and understanding of their designs. Assurance is gained via proof; understanding is gained via the construction of proof. Researchers have developed powerful proof techniques; they have not focused suuciently on creating tools to support reasoning. As a result, formal methods fails to attain its full potential. We argue that by formalizing the notations provided by diagrammatic representations, we can build tools that provide support for both proof and reasoning, thereby making formal methods more widely applicable by designers.