Formal Verification of Universal Numbers using Theorem Proving

Abstract

A universal number (Unum) is a number representation format that can reduce the memory contention issues in multicore processors and parallel computing systems by optimizing the bit storage in the arithmetic operations. Given the safety-critical nature of applications of Unum format, there is a dire need to rigorously assess the correctness of the Unum based arithmetic operations. Unums are of three types, namely, Unum-I, Unum-II and Unum-III (commonly known as Posits). In this paper, we provide a higher-order-logic formalization of Unum-III (posits). In particular, we formally model a posit format (binary encoding of a posit), which is comprised of the sign, exponent, regime and fraction bits, using the HOL Light theorem prover. In order to prove the correctness of a posit format, we formally verify various properties regarding conversions of a real number to a posit and a posit to a real number and the scaling factors of the regime, exponent and fraction bits of a posit using HOL Light.