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The Computer Journal 1986 29(5):416-422; doi:10.1093/comjnl/29.5.416
© 1986 by British Computer Society
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Validating microcode algebraically

J. M. Foster *

Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, St Andrew's Road, Malvern, Worcs, WR14 3PS, UK

This paper describes systematic algebraic methods used by a program to help in validating microcode. The methods are formal, mathematical and generally applicable. Examples are given of the kind of property of microcode which can be found, including checking for timing constraints, ensuring that interrupts are polled frequently, checking against expression stack overflow and ensuring the absence of certain sequences of instruction. The method separates into a large part which deals only with the control structure of the microcode, and a small part which deals with the operations performed by the micro-instructions. It has been used to check many properties of the implementation of Flex on Perq, which involves more than 5000 microinstructions.

Received March 1985.

* Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, St Andrew's Road, Malvern, Worcs, WR14 3PS


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