Knowledge Base Administration Guide

Formal Coverage TSV

Simscope can track results of Formal property assertions/coverage (ie proofs).

→ See also Functional/Line TSV example

Note: if using Jasper for formal, please contact VerOps to use a jasper_parse_simscope.py formal parsing script.

Screenshot

Here is an sample Formal coverage database screenshot:

Formal Coverage


Formal TSV Fields

Formal coverage uses the following fields to describe properties:

FieldTypeDescriptionExample Values
namestringName of the formal property (with hierarchy).top.iconnect.genblk1.assert
groupstringGroup to organize this property.top
typestringType of the property.assert, formal, assumption
enginestringEngine used to evaluate the property.abc
resultstringResult of the property evaluation.proven, cex, etc.
boundintNumber of cycles the property processed until.10
time_secondsfloatEngine time spent processing the property (in seconds).100.23 (ie 1min 40sec)
statusstringFinal status of the property (see Status below).pass / fail / partial / ignore

Type

The type field describes the property type. This can contain any string value, but the common values are:

  • assumption
  • assert
  • cover

Result

The result field describes the final result from processing the formal properties.

This can be any string value, but the common result values are:

  • Assumptions

    • approved
    • temporary
  • Assertions

    • proven
    • marked_proven
    • cex
    • ar_cex
    • undetermined
    • unprocessed (also called disabled)
    • error
  • Covers

    • unreachable
    • covered
    • ar_covered
    • undetermined
    • unprocessed
    • error

Status

The status field determines how Simscope scores each property.

  • The scores of all properties are collected under each group and overall for the database.
StatusDescription
ignoreAssumptions (ignored from scoring)
passproven assertions or covered covers
failcex (ie counterexample)
partialBounded proofs: note the bound value describes the cycle

Bounded Proofs (partial results)

For Bounded Proof properties, where the cycle value determines pass/fail status:

  • Set the result to undetermined
  • Set the status to partial
  • Set the bound to a cycle value, like 25

At display time, Simscope will calculate a pass/fail on the property, if this value exceeds the minimum_cycles threshold.

Example scenarios:

  • minimum_cycles is 10 and property bound is 5 → property computed as fail
  • minimum_cycles is 10 and property bound is 12 → property computed as pass

Formal TSV Example File

Here is an example formal TSV file with 4 properties:

Note: the TSV file format uses the [tab] keyboard character between fields (not spaces or commas).

name	group	type	engine	result	bound	time_seconds	status
top.iconnect..AXI_MASTER_MAGIC_ADDR_STABLE_prop	xbar_fab_port	assumption	?	temporary		0.000	ignore
top.iconnect.genblk33.genblk2.AXI_MAGIC_ID_ARVALID_prop:precondition1	xbar_fab_port	cover	Bm	covered	2	2.194	pass
xbar_fab_port.CHK_iconnect_no_read_interleaving.genblk1.p	xbar_fab_port	formal	Bm	undetermined	30 -	8533.987	partial
top.iconnect.genblk1.genblk21.AXI_ERRS_rid_STABLE_prop	xbar_fab_port	assert	Ncustom6	proven	Infinite	6.172	pass

Publishing

To publish formal coverage TSV files into Simscope, see the Data Integration topic.