Integrating model checking and theorem proving in a reflective functional language

Forte is a formal verification system developed by Intel's Strategic CAD Labs for applications in hardware design and verification. Forte integrates model checking and theorem proving within a functional programming language, which both serves as an extensible specification language and allows the system to be scripted and customized. The latest version of this language, called reFL(ect), has quotation and antiquotation constructs that build and decompose expressions in the language itself. This provides combination of pattern-matching and reflection features tailored especially for the Forte approach to verification. This short paper is an abstract of an invited presentation given at the International Conference on Integrated Formal Methods in 2004, in which the philosophy and architecture of the Forte system are described and an account is given of the role of reFLect in the system.