A non-transitory computer readable storage media, a computer-implemented method and apparatus for electronic design automation are disclosed. A reference integrated circuit (IC) design and a remitted IC design are received. Instances of cells of the reference IC design and the retimed IC designed are replaced with replacement circuits based on a description of moves of retiming associated with the reference IC design and the synthesized IC design. A comparison of the reference IC design and the retimed IC designed is performed to determine whether the retimed IC design is equivalent to the transformed IC design.