Applications of Formal Methods

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Applications of Formal Methods Lenore Zuck,
CS Support from NSF, ONR, and SRC
Problem Statement and Motivation

• Translation Validation
• Backward Compatibility of successive generations
  of software
• Formal proofs that optimizing compilers maintain
  semantics of programs
• Termination proofs of Pointer programs
• Property Verification of parameterized systems
  (bus protocols, cache coherence, c)

Key Achievements and Future Goals
Technical Approach

• Translation validation verifies each go of the
  system. Verification conditions that are
  automatically created are send to theorem provers
• Combination of model checking and deductive
  methods allows to push the envelope of automatic
  verification of infinite-state systems (for both
  pointer programs and protocols)

• Based on methodology developed, Intel is using
  MicroFomal to verify backward compatibility of
  micropgrams (between RISC CISC)
• (Need to develop better methodologies to prove
  theories that have bit vectors)
• IIV is a new tool that allows automatic
  verification of safety properties of
  parameterized systems (nothing bad will ever
  happen)
• Researchers at MSR have expressed interest to
  integrate pointer analysis in their verification
  tool