We present foundational work on standard bases over rings and on Boolean
Groebner bases in the framework of Boolean functions. The research was
motivated by our collaboration with electrical engineers and computer
scientists on problems arising from formal verification of digital circuits. In
fact, algebraic modelling of formal verification problems is developed on the
word-level as well as on the bit-level. The word-level model leads to Groebner
basis in the polynomial ring over Z/2n while the bit-level model leads to
Boolean Groebner bases. In addition to the theoretical foundations of both
approaches, the algorithms have been implemented. Using these implementations
we show that special data structures and the exploitation of symmetries make
Groebner bases competitive to state-of-the-art tools from formal verification
but having the advantage of being systematic and more flexible.Comment: 44 pages, 8 figures, submitted to the Special Issue of the Journal of
Pure and Applied Algebr