The Howdy Glossary

Helium is a functional programming language created to verify properties of digital designs using first-order logic and various operators. It allows verification engineers to define safety and correctness requirements for hardware components or systems, with tools checking these properties automatically against the design's description. This early verification helps identify errors in the hardware development cycle before significant resources are invested in prototyping or production.

The language was developed by researchers and developers specializing in formal verification and digital design methodologies, aiming to provide a tool that ensures correctness in digital designs through automated techniques. Helium facilitates defining safety and correctness properties which are then checked automatically against the design's description, thus streamlining the process of verifying complex hardware components or systems. This approach aims at catching errors early in the cycle, enhancing efficiency and reliability.

Helium stands out due to its foundation in first-order logic for constructing abstract models of hardware components using boolean, arithmetic, and verification operators. Its automatic property-checking feature provides valuable feedback to engineers during the early stages of development, improving quality and reliability. Compared to mainstream languages like Verilog or VHDL that focus on description and synthesis, Helium emphasizes property verification through automated checks against specifications. While it competes with other formal verification languages like ACL2 and Coq known for theorem proving, Helium’s focus on accessible abstract modeling makes it an efficient solution for ensuring digital design compliance.