Process Algebra as a Common Framework for Hardware/Software Coverification

This letter presents the practical issues concerning late and insufficient verification of low-level software on hardware platforms developed by our industrial partner. To overcome these issues, we propose a coverification platform based on process algebra. The descriptions of hardware and software, and their interface are translated into a common process-algebraic platform, and formal verification techniques are used to check the conformance of the two descriptions. We present the results of our first attempt towards this goal, discuss the lessons learned, and present the road-map for future research.