DESIGN VERIFICATION USING SEQUENTIAL AND COMBINATIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS

System and software for verifying that a model of an integrated circuit satisfies its specification includes performing a sequence of at least one sequential transformation on a sequential model of the integrated circuit to produce a simplified sequential model of the integrated circuit. Thereafter, the simplified sequential model is unfolded for N time steps to create a combinational representation of the design. A sequence of at least one combinational transformation algorithms is then performed on the unfolded design to produce a simplified unfolded model. Finally, an exhaustive search algorithm is performed on the simplified unfolded model. The sequence of sequential transformations may include a sequential redundancy removal (SRR) algorithm and/or another sequential algorithm such as a retiming transformation. The combinational transformations may include a combinational redundancy removal algorithm or a logic re-encoding algorithm. The exhaustive search includes performing an exhaustive satisfiability search by propagating a binary decision diagram (BDD) through the netlist.