Structural Symmetry and Model Checking

A fully automatic framework is presented for identifying symmetries in structural descriptions of digital circuits and CTL formulas and using them in a model checker. The set of sub-formulas of a formula is partitioned into equivalence classes so that truth values for only one sub-formula in any class need be evaluated for model checking. Structural symmetries in net-list descriptions of digital circuits and CTL formulas are formally defined and their relationship with the corresponding Kripke structures is described. A technique for automatic identification of structural symmetries is described that requires computation of the automorphism group of a suitable labeled directed graph. A novel fast algorithm for this problem is presented. Finally, experimental results are reported for BLIF-MV net-lists derived from Verilog.

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