This disclosure describes a method for accomplishing sequential logical equivalence verification using a hierarchical piecewise approach. Initially, the method provides a reference semiconductor design and a second semiconductor design with logic edits relative to it. The method submits both to formal verification to check the reference design against the second semiconductor design with all edits disabled 200. The semiconductor design is partitioned 202 and associated input constraints 204. The edits are further grouped 206 and ordered 208. The invention also discovers a set of dependencies of the logic edits 210 and checks that the ordering of groups obeys the dependencies 212. Each group of edits is further submitted to formal verification 214 and any input constraints assumed for any partitions are verified in their enclosing partition 216. Finally, the method reports success if formal verification succeeds on each group of logic edits and on each set of input constraints 218.