Specification and verification of GPGPU programs using permission-based separation logic

Abstract. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are increasingly used for general-purpose applications because of their low price, energy efficiency and enormous computing power. Considering the importance of GPU applications, it is vital that the behaviour of GPU programs can be specified and proven correct formally. This paper presents our ideas how to verify GPU programs written in OpenCL, a platform-independent low-level programming language. Our verification approach is modular, based on permission-based separation logic. We first present the main ingredients of our logic, and then illustrate its use on several example kernels. We show in particular how the logic is used to prove data-race-freedom and functional correctness of GPU applications.