Complete worst-case execution time analysis of straight-line hard real-time programs

In this article, the problem of finding a tight estimate on the worst-case execution time (WCET) of a real-time program is addressed. The analysis is focused on straight-line code (i.e. code without loops and recursive function calls) which is quite commonly found in synthesised code of hard real-time embedded systems. The analysis exploits the very simple structure of these programs, resulting in a considerable processing time improvement compared to general-case analysis techniques. A comprehensive timing analysis system, called the Program Timing Analyser (PTA), covering low-level aspects (on the assembler instruction level) as well as high-level aspects (on the programming language level) is presented.The concepts of PTA are demonstrated with a detailed example. Also some experimental results are given. On one hand the low-level analysis covers all speed-up mechanisms used for modern superscalar processors: pipelining, instruction-level parallelism and caching. It can handle a uni...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2000
• Where: JSA
• Authors: Friedhelm Stappert, Peter Altenbernd
• Keywords: Analysis, Assembler Instructions, JSA 2000, Simple Structure