ACCESS: HW/SW-Co-Equivalence Checking for Firmware Optimization

Customizing embedded computing platforms to specific application domains often necessitates optimizing the firmware and/or the HW/SW interface under tight resource constraints. Such optimizations frequently alter the communication between the firmware and the peripheral devices, possibly compromising functional correctness of the input/output behavior of the embedded system. This paper proposes a formal HW/SW co-equivalence checking technique for verifying correct I/O behavior of peripherals under a modified firmware.