An Interpreter Interface Language: From Its Formal Embedding in Higher-Order Logic to Its Role in Better Simulation Practices

Interpreters are the model of choice for much of the hardware design-verification community. In part, by restricting behavior to a single level of abstraction, interpreters provide a highly desirable conciseness of expression. However, this single-level extent necessarily requires some other means to ‘bridge the gap’ between interpreters in a multi-level hierarchy; i.e., to define the abstraction between the levels. This paper presents an interpreter interface language that we have found to be well suited to the task of modeling interpreter abstraction. We describe our formal embedding of this language within the HOL theorem proving system, and we overview some of the proof support provided by our implementation. Finally, we describe a fundamental role of interface languages in the practical insertion of formal methods concepts into mainstream simulation environments.