The Design of On-line Checkers and Their Use in Verification and Testing

on-line checker, on-line testing, verification, communication protocol, PSL, FoCs, ModelSim, FPGA

In the article, a survey of our research activities the goal of which is to develop a methodology allowing to design on-line checkers for digital components and communication protocols are described. First, our experiments with PSL language and FoCs tool are demonstrated for simple RT circuits and communication protocols. It is shown how PSL can be used to describe conditions to be checked by an on-line checker of a digital component. It is demonstrated that on-line checkers generated from PSL description demand more sources than the unit under check which is seen as unacceptable result. The principle of our methodology for generating VHDL descriptions of hardware checkers from the formal model is presented, too. The results and compare of both methodologies are described. The possibilities of utilizing these approaches in the design of Fault Tolerant Systems are described in conclusion.