SBIR Phase I: Early Detection of Software and Hardware Flaws by Conformance Checking and Virtual Prototyping

This Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) Phase I project is to design and develop an automatic conformance checking solution that can quickly detect inconsistencies between virtual devices and hardware prototypes. Computer and consumer electronics manufacturers are facing increasingly complex hardware designs, and lengthy, painstaking software and hardware integration processes. To address tight time-to-market deadlines, many manufacturers develop software drivers over virtual devices before hardware is available. However, to realize the benefits of early software development, it is critical to ensure consistency between the virtual and physical devices, so that software developed over the virtual device will work on the physical device when it becomes available. This project will study and design tools to help discover and report inconsistencies to developers, with the goal of reducing testing and development effort, while improving product quality. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to provide software tools to ensure the effectiveness of early software development. Computer device manufacturers are targeting fast-evolving segments, such as the mobile market, and face intense competition. To remain competitive, manufacturers are eager to adopt new technologies, such as virtual prototyping, to enable early software development. Conformance checking helps detect the inconsistencies between virtual and physical hardware, and thus helps cut product time-to-market. This project will also benefit vendors that build virtual prototyping platforms by extending the current feature set with conformance checking. The addition of these features will enable the full power of early software development using virtual prototyping, and will encourage more users to use their products.