Our life is dominated by hardware: a USB stick, the processor in our laptops or the SIM card in our smart phone. But who or what makes sure that these systems work stably, safely and securely from the word go? The computer - with a little help from humans. The overall name for this is CAD (computer-aided design), and it’s become hard to imagine our modern industrial world without it.

So how can we be sure that the hardware and computer systems we use are reliable? By using formal methods: these are techniques and tools to calculate whether a system description is in itself consistent or whether requirements have been developed and implemented correctly. Or to put it another way: they can be used to check the safety and security of hardware and software.

Just how this works in real life was also of interest at the annual conference on "Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design (FMCAD)". Under the direction of Ruzica Piskac and Michael Whalen, the 21st Conference in October 2021 addressed the results of the latest research in the field of formal methods. A volume of conference proceedings with over 30 articles covering a wide range of formal methods has now been published for this online conference: starting from the verification of hardware, parallel and distributed systems as well as neuronal networks, right through to machine learning and decision-making procedures.

This volume provides a fascinating insight into revolutionary methods, technologies, theoretical results and tools for formal logic in computer systems and system developments.