Several companies have used formal verification to perform silicon bug hunting. That is one of the most advanced usages of formal verification. It is a complex process that includes incorporating multiple sources of information and managing numerous success factors concurrently. In this paper, we will share a “spiral refinement” bug hunt methodology that captures the success factors and guides the deployment of various formal techniques. The objective is to identify the significant challenges and to gradually improve each of the factors so that we can “zero-in” on these critical bugs.
