It is widely acknowledged that the cost of validation and testing comprises a s- nificant percentage of the overall development costs for electronic systems today, and is expected to escalate sharply in the future. Many studies have shown that up to 70% of the design development time and resources are spent on functional verification. Functional errors manifest themselves very early in the design flow, and unless they are detected up front, they can result in severe consequence- both financially and from a safety viewpoint. Indeed, several recent instances of high-profile functional errors...