Verifying Communication Protocols Using Live Sequence Chart Specifications

The need for a formal verification process in System on Chip (SoC) design and Intellectual Property (IP) integration has been recognized and investigated significantly in the past. A major drawback is the lack of a suitable specification language against which definitive and efficient verification of inter-core communication can be performed to prove compliance of an IP block against the protocol specification. Previous research has yielded positive results of verifying systems against the graphical language of Live Sequence Charts (LSCs) but has identified key limitations of the process that arise from the lack of support for important constructs of LSCs such as Kleene stars, subcharts, and hierarchical charts. In this paper we further investigate the use of LSCs as a specification language and show how it can be formally translated to automata suitable for input to a model checker for automatic verification of the system under test. We present the translation for subcharts, Kleene stars, and hierarchical charts that are essential for protocol specification and have not been translated to automata before. Further, we successfully translate the BVCI protocol (point to point communication protocol) specification from LSC to an automaton and present a case study of verifying models using the resulting automaton.