A consistency checker for memory subsystem traces

Abstract

Verifying the memory subsystem in a modern shared-memory multiprocessor is a big challenge. Optimized implementations are highly sophisticated, yet must provide subtle consistency and liveness guarantees for the correct execution of concurrent programs. We present a tool that supports efficient specification-based testing of the memory subsystem against a range of formally specified consistency models. Our tool operates directly on the memory subsystem interface, promoting a compositional approach to system-on-chip verification, and can be used to search for simple failure cases — assisting rapid debug. It has recently been incorporated into the development flows of two open-source implementations — Berkeley's Rocket Chip(RISC-V) and Cambridge's BERI (MIPS) — where it has uncovered a number of serious bugs.