IEEE APPROVES PROPERTY LANGUAGE
STANDARD FOR VERIFICATION OF COMPLEX HARDWARE
Contact:
Harry Foster, Chair of the Language for Formal Specification
of Electronic System Behavior Working Group , +1 650-804-5000,
harrydfoster@comcast.net
or
Karen McCabe, IEEE Senior Marketing Manager
+1 732-562-3824, k.mccabe@ieee.org
PISCATAWAY, N.J., USA, 26 September
2005 The IEEE has approved a standard to help hardware
developers save verification time, effort and cost
while improving quality. The new standard, IEEE 1850(TM),
“Standard for PSL: Property Specification Language,”
specifies the design behavior of electronic systems
using properties, assertions and other approaches.
It was developed within the IEEE Standard Association’s
Corporate Program.
IEEE 1850 refines the Accellera PSL 1.1 specification
which provides for property-based verification. The
new standard addresses several technical issues and
adds interfaces that make it compatible with mixed-language
designs involving IEEE 1076(TM) VHDL, IEEE 1364(TM)
Verilog, IEEE P1800(TM) SystemVerilog, OSCI SystemC
and other system design languages.
“This standard seeks to ease the burden of verifying
complex hardware designs, which can account for more
than 60 percent of a design cycle,” says Harry
Foster, Chair of the IEEE 1850 Working Group. “The
expressiveness inherent in PSL allows engineers to
capture functional specifications concisely and unambiguously,
which then can be used during the design and verification
process.
“Property Specification Language (PSL) gives
designers an elegant way to work with the intricate
software inherent in very large scale integration
that goes well beyond the limits of natural design
languages based on words. It also increases confidence
that chip and system designs are correct before fabrication.
The PSL version in IEEE 1850 is unique in that it
supports formal specification and verification of
design intent across all major hardware description
languages.”
Standards are developed within the IEEE-SA Corporate
Program in company-based working groups in which each
member has one vote. This industry-oriented program
often allows for standards creation in one to two
years, depending on participant commitment and the
use of IEEE support services.
IEEE 1850 was sponsored by the Design Automation
Standards Committee within the IEEE Computer Society
and by the IEEE Corporate Advisory Group.
About the IEEE Standards Association
The IEEE Standards Association, a globally recognized
standards-setting body, develops consensus standards
through an open process that brings diverse parts
of an industry together. These standards set specifications
and procedures based on current scientific consensus.
The IEEE-SA has a portfolio of more than 870 completed
standards and more than 400 standards in development.
For information on IEEE-SA see: http://standards.ieee.org/.
About the IEEE
The IEEE has more than 360,000 members in approximately
150 countries. Through its members, the organization
is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace,
computers and telecommunications to biomedicine, electric
power and consumer electronics. The IEEE produces
nearly 30 percent of the world's literature in the
electrical and electronics engineering, computing
and control technology fields. This nonprofit organization
also sponsors or cosponsors more than 300 technical
conferences each year. Additional information about
the IEEE can be found at http://www.ieee.org.
