Formal Model of a Protocol Converter

Cao, J. and Nymeyer, A.

Reuse of components is a burgeoning field in chip design. Shorter time to market and assured quality are just two good reasons to reuse previously engineered components. Problems arise however when chip designers need to interface these components as they typically conform to different standards, or no standards at all. The popular model of interfacing components such as protocols is via a 'converter' that translates data between the components. We develop a theoretical model of a converter that will enable two given arbitrary protocols to communicate. This model includes buffers. We formally define correctness conditions, and guarantee that the resulting converter satisfies these conditions. We also allow the designer to define his own (CTL) conditions. As well, we allow protocols to be nondeterministic, and we ensure only valid data is sent to the converter. The verification of the conditions is carried out by a model checker (not reported in this work). We have implemented our theoretical model and we present experimental results. Note that some of equations in this abstract may have been omitted or may be displayed incorrectly.

Cite as: Cao, J. and Nymeyer, A. (2009). Formal Model of a Protocol Converter. In Proc. Fifteenth Computing: The Australasian Theory Symposium (CATS 2009), Wellington, New Zealand. CRPIT, 94. Downey, R. and Manyem, P., Eds. ACS. 107-117.

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