System-on-chip design by proof-based refinement

Systems-on-chip (SoCs) and SoC architectures provide a collection of challenging problems related to specification, modelling techniques, security issues and structuring questions. We describe a design methodology integrating the event B method and characterized by the incremental and proof-controlled construction of SoC models. The essence of the methodology is the refinement of models, starting from system requirements and producing event B models for characterizing the system under development. The refinement is a unifying concept that ensures the consistency of the different models produced and our contribution is an illustration through a case study, namely a system for measuring the parameters of audio/video quality in the digital video broadcasting (DVB) set of digital TV standards. The first part is the derivation of an architecture of parameters from the document ETSI TR 101 290 and the validation of the architecture using invariants of B models. The second part is the proposal of B models of the SystemC scheduler and an instantiation of these abstract models of the simulation semantics by parameters of the SystemC codes automatically translated from the B models of the DVB system. Finally, the third part relies upon a proof-based methodology for deriving an operational semantics of a given system that is expressed by an event B model including invariant properties.