English

An Efficient Runtime Validation Framework based on the Theory of Refinement

Logic in Computer Science 2017-03-17 v1 Software Engineering

Abstract

We introduce a new methodology based on refinement for testing the functional correctness of hardware and low-level software. Our methodology overcomes several major drawbacks of the de facto testing methodologies used in industry: (1) it is difficult to determine completeness of the properties and tests under consideration (2) defining oracles for tests is expensive and error-prone (3) properties are defined in terms of low-level designs. Our approach compiles a formal refinement conjecture into a runtime check that is performed during simulation. We describe our methodology, discuss algorithmic issues, and provide experimental validation using a 5-stage RISCV pipelined microprocessor and hypervisor.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1703.05317,
  title  = {An Efficient Runtime Validation Framework based on the Theory of Refinement},
  author = {Mitesh Jain and Panagiotis Manolios},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.05317},
  year   = {2017}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T18:46:51.134Z