Validating SAT Solvers Using an Independent Resolution-Based Checker Practical Implementations and Other Applications

• Published in: Design, Automation, and Test in Europe: Proceedings of the conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe - Volume 1; 03-07 Mar. 2003 p. 10880
• Main Authors: Zhang, Lintao, Malik, Sharad
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC, USA IEEE Computer Society 03.03.2003
• Series: ACM Conferences
• Subjects: Hardware > Hardware test; Hardware > Hardware validation > Functional verification; Hardware > Integrated circuits > Logic circuits > Combinational circuits; Hardware > Robustness
• ISBN: 0769518702; 9780769518701
• ISSN: 1530-1591
• DOI: 10.5555/789083.1022835

As the use of SAT solvers as core engines in EDA applications grows, it becomes increasingly important to validate their correctness. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an independent resolution-based checking procedure that can check the validity of unsatisfiable claims produced by the SAT solver zchaff. We examine the practical implementation issues of such a checker and describe two implementations with different pros and cons. Experimental results show low overhead for the checking process. Our checker can work with many other modern SAT solvers with minor modifications, and it can provide information for debugging when checking fails. Finally we describe additional results that can be obtained by the validation process and briefly discuss their applications.