A Practical Introduction to PSL (Integrated Circuits and Systems) [Hardcover]

Cindy Eisner (Author), Dana Fisman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 20, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0387353135 | ISBN-13: 978-0387353135 | Edition: 1

This book describes the Property Specification Language PSL, recently standardized as IEEE Standard 1850-2005. PSL was developed to fulfill the following requirements: easy to learn, write, and read; concise syntax; rigorously well-defined formal semantics; expressive power, permitting the specification for a large class of real world design properties; known efficient underlying algorithms in simulation, as well as formal verification. Basic features are covered, as well as advanced topics such as the use of PSL in multiply-clocked designs. A full chapter is devoted to common errors, gathered through the authors' many years of experience in using and teaching the language.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A Practical Introduction to PSL describes the Property Specification Language PSL, recently standardized as IEEE Std 1850-2005. PSL provides a way to express properties of a design. Both authors, Cindy Eisner (IBM Haifa Research Laboratory, Haifa University Campus, Haifa, Israel) and Dana Fisman (The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel) were involved with the creation of the standard.

A Practical Introduction to PSL includes extensive examples illustrated with timing diagrams. While mostly oriented to users of PSL for simulation, a section on the use of PSL in formal verification is included. All of the basic language constructs are covered, as well as advanced topics such as the use of PSL in multiply-clocked designs. The chapter on common errors, based on the authors’ many years of experience in using and teaching the language, will be helpful to both beginners and more experienced users.

A Practical Introduction to PSL is primarily targeted to hardware designers and verification engineers who plan to use PSL. This book is also of interest to students of temporal logic. The formal semantics of PSL are included as an appendix, and bibliographical notes include pointers to some of the main theoretical works.

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From the Foreword:

… "Cindy Eisner and Dana Fisman were the two key people who turned IBM Sugar into PSL. Their deep understanding of PSL’s formal semantics was instrumental in both the Accellera and IEEE PSL standardization efforts. Cindy and Dana have now created the most authoritative source for information about PSL, designed to introduce the language incrementally in an easily understood fashion. A Practical Introduction to PSL provides a solid foundation for getting started with PSL today."

- Harry Foster - Erich Marschner

Mentor Graphics Corporation Cadence Design Systems

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (July 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387353135
• ISBN-13: 978-0387353135
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for anyone involved in verification!, November 12, 2006

By 

Harry D. Foster (Plano, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Practical Introduction to PSL (Integrated Circuits and Systems) (Hardcover)

For all design or verification engineers interested in the emerging field of assertion-based verification (ABV), you will want to own Cindy Eisner and Dana Fisman's excellent book: A Practical Introduction to PSL. For those who are new to PSL, you will find that this book incrementally introduces the language in an easy-to-understand fashion. Each chapter is chock-full of practical examples, complete with waveforms to visually aid an understanding of the properties. For the expert, you will find that this book is an excellent reference. For readers from beginner to expert, the chapter on Common Errors clarifies often misunderstood concepts, and it will set you in the right direction for successfully applying PSL.

This book should be part of any serious engineer's personal library.

Harry Foster

Co-author--Assertion-Based Design, Applied Formal Verification, Principles of Verifiable RTL Design

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a language guide, August 9, 2011

By 

Ben Nathanson - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Practical Introduction to PSL (Integrated Circuits and Systems) (Hardcover)

I found A Practical Introduction to be a valuable guide to the visible parts of PSL and an even better guide to its frightening depths. It equips you to work in temporal language - a field that manages to be maddeningly subtle, strewn with unmarked hazards, and of immense practical value.

Verification engineers are always thinking about events in time, so a language of them does not seem formidable. And PSL - originally named Sugar, as in syntactic - was bred to be pretty. A trip through Google can leave you imagining you're ready to write.

But as many already know, temporal language is as hazardous as it is graceful.

That's a beautiful thing. The language makes precise areas where people think fuzzily, and as a verification engineer, that's just where you want to be. But it means that to learn PSL - to learn temporal expression generally - you'll need guts and a Sherpa.

Eisner and Fisman helped develop the language and its formal semantics. They ushered the language through standardization. They have trained verification engineers in it. So they understand the language's subtleties and misuse.

Reflecting this, the book gives examples, always with waveforms, for the language's features and flavors. It clarifies subtleties. It is wide-ranging, with chapters on, for example, multiply clocked designs. It is, as you would hope, definitive.

Into this is mixed a more-than-I-bargained-for chapter, Common Errors. So you thought, after reading carefully, that you had the subtleties down? Probably you're doing something in this chapter. And I reread, with deeper understanding, the chapters that came before.

Another striking chapter was High- Versus Low-Level Assertions, showing that although we'd been talking about bits, the language can express high-level state with amazing compactness. I wish this chapter had been longer.

I finished the book feeling I had not only grasped PSL, but, through it, the thinking essential to using temporal language effectively.

Disclaimer: The authors work for IBM and so do I. I do not know them, I have not worked with them, and I purchased the book on my own.