Formal clock network analysis, visualization, verification and generation

Abstract

Formal verification techniques are used to extract valid clock modes from a hardware description of the clock network. In one aspect, the clock network includes primary clocks and configuration signals as inputs, and also includes derived clocks within the clock network. The derived clocks are configurable for different clock modes according to the values of the configuration signals. A parametric liveness property checking is applied to the derived clocks, where the configuration signals are parameters for the parametric liveness property checking. The parametric liveness property checking infers which values of the configuration signals result in valid clock modes for the derived clocks.