Is formal being squeezed out of functional verification?

Summary form only given. Formal methods have long been on the verge of adoption into mainstream verification approaches, but have never managed to cross over the line. Assertion based verification techniques have renewed interest in this technology, as they have shown how static and dynamic technologies can work side by side to solve a number of critical problems. At the same time, design sizes and the need to use higher abstractions for models are making it difficult to find the right application for these tools. One of the largest problems facing these techniques is that they are not capable of replacing any aspect of a traditional verification environment, and thus, their inclusion is a trade off between quality and time to market.