Abstract

The productivity and scalability of verifying pipelined circuits can be increased by exploiting the structural and behavioural characteristics that distinguish pipelines from other circuits. This paper presents a formal model of pipelines that augments a state machine with information to describe the transfer of parcels between stages, and reading and writing state variables. Using our model, we created a definition of correctness that is based on the well-established principles of structural, control, and data hazards. We have proved that any pipeline that satisfies our hazards-based definition of correctness is guaranteed to satisfy the conventional correctness statement of Burch-Dill style flushing. Document type: Part of book or chapter of book