The growth in complexity of designs increases the importance of formal verification techniques in the hardware industry. At present, formal verification is used by most or all leading hardware companies, but its use in the software industry is still languishing. This could be attributed to the greater need in the hardware industry, where errors have greater commercial significance. Because of the potential subtle interactions between components, it is increasingly difficult to exercise a realistic set of possibilities by simulation. Important aspects of hardware design are amenable to automated proof methods, making formal verification easier to introduce and more productive.