Industry Expert Blogs

Artificial intelligence or not, formal verification is a technology that has become a must-have in the modern verification flow.

I recently started reading a book, Super Intelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, by Nick Bostrom. I was surprised to find the following text in the chapter describing state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) applications:

"Theorem-proving and equation-solving are by now so well established that they are hardly regarded as AI any more. Equation solvers are included in scientific computing programs such as Mathematica. Formal verification methods, including automated theorem provers, are routinely used by chip manufacturers to verify the behavior of circuit designs prior to production."

I was also surprised to discover that -- among hundreds of EDA software applications in the semiconductor design, verification, and production flow -- formal verification was singled out as a "once-upon-a-time" artificial intelligence application.

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