Finding a compact formal representation of a processor instruction set is important for easier comprehension by the designer, as well as for synthesis of an efficient hardware implementation of the processor's microcontroller.We present a new heuristic algorithm for deriving compact models of processor instruction sets. The algorithm is based on finding similarities between pairs of instructions and assigning similar opcodes (using a Hamming distance metric) to similar instructions (using a newly introduced instruction similarity metric). We demonstrate that this heuristic produces results with an average overhead, in terms of area, of 7.8% in comparison to the global optimum on the benchmarks we studied (subsets of instructions of ARM Cortex M0+, Texas Instruments MSP430 and Intel 8051 processors).The algorithm is implemented as an open-source plugin for the Workcraft framework and is validated on a case study of a subset of 61 (out of 68) instructions of ARM Cortex M0+ processor. We compare the presented algorithm against a number of other available implementations.
This paper presents a methodology for modelling and verification of high-assurance distributed protocols. In the paper we describe two main technical contributions needed for the development method: communication modelling patterns and a refinement strategy. The applicability of the proposed method is demonstrated by developing a new distributed resource allocation protocol. We also discuss the necessity of integrating other tools such as stochastic model checkers for enabling verification of wider range of protocol properties.
The modern radio-based railway signalling systems aim to increase network's capacity by enabling trains to run closer to each other. At the core of such systems is train's on-board computer (discrete) responsible for computing and controlling the speed (continuous) of the train. Such systems are best captured by hybrid models, which capture discrete and continuous system's aspects. Hybrid models are notoriously difficult to model and verify, in our research we address this problem by applying hybrid systems' modelling patterns and stepwise refinement for developing hybrid train speed controller model.
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