Higher-Level Speci cation and Veri cation With BDDs

Currently, many are investigating promising veriication methods based on Boolean decision diagrams (BDDs). Using BDDs, however, requires modeling the system under veriication in terms of Boolean formulas. This modeling can be diicult and error-prone, especially when dealing with constructs like arithmetic, sequential control ow, and complex data structures. We present new techniques for automatically translating these constructs into BDDs. Furthermore, these techniques generate Boolean next-state relations in a form that allows eecient image computation without building the full BDD for the next-state relation, thereby side-stepping the commonly-encountered BDD-size blowup of next-state relations.