A tool for automatic flow analysis of C-programs for WCET calculation

Abstract. The determination of upper bounds on execution times, commonly called WorstCase Execution Times (WCETs), is a necessary step in the development and validation process for hard real-time systems. This problem is hard if the underlying processor architecture has components such as caches, pipelines, branch prediction, and other speculative components. This article describes different approaches to this problem and surveys several commercially available tools and research prototypes.

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“…Gustafsson et al [GLSB03] uses a combination of flow-analysis methods. For simple loops, pattern matching is used.…”

Section: Control-flow Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The worst-case execution-time problem—overview of methods and survey of tools

Wilhelm

Engblom²,

Ermedahl

et al. 2008

ACM Trans. Embed. Comput. Syst.

1,470

1,029

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“…The SWEET tool (SWEdish Execution time Tool) [15,22] is a research prototype tool, which combines the flow Figure 5. WCET tool prototype analysis described in this paper with a number of supporting analyses.…”

Section: The Sweet Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a Flow Analysis for Embedded System C Programs

Gustafsson

Ermedahl

Lisper

10th IEEE International Workshop on Object-Oriented Real-Time Dependable Systems

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“…We have developed a modular WCET analysis tool architecture [8], and an actual prototype tool named SWEET (SWEdish Execution time Tool) is in the final stage of completion [27]. Our current focus is on automatic methods to find constraints on program flows, like the maximal number of iterations for loops.…”

Section: The Project Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Static Timing Analysis of Real-Time Operating System Code

Sandell

Ermedahl

Gustafsson

et al. 2006

Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods

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Abstract. Methods for Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) analysis have been known for some time, and recently commercial tools have emerged. However, the technique has so far not been much used to analyse real production codes. Here, we present a case study where static WCET analysis was used to find upper time bounds for time-critical regions in a commercial real-time operating system. The purpose was not primarily to test the accuracy of the estimates, but rather to investigate the practical difficulties that arise when applying the current WCET analysis methods to this particular kind of code. In particular, we were interested in how labor-intense the analysis becomes, measured by the number of annotations to explicitly constrain the program flow which is necessary to perform the analysis. We also make some qualitative observations regarding what a WCET analysis method would need in order to perform a both convenient and tight analysis of typical operating systems code. In a second set of experiments, we analyzed some standard WCET benchmark codes compiled with different levels of optimization. The purpose of this study was to see how the different compiler optimizations affected the precision of the analysis, and again whether it affected the level of user intervention necessary to obtain an accurate WCET estimate.

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A tool for automatic flow analysis of C-programs for WCET calculation

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 18 publications

References 11 publications

The worst-case execution-time problem—overview of methods and survey of tools

The worst-case execution-time problem—overview of methods and survey of tools

Towards a Flow Analysis for Embedded System C Programs

Static Timing Analysis of Real-Time Operating System Code

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