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Evaluation of Static Time Analysis for Volcano Communications Technologies AB

Fulltext:


Authors:

Susanna Byhlin

Publication Type:

Student Thesis


Abstract

Today, small computers are commonly embedded as a part of many different products like mobile telephones, toys and vehicles and the number of embedded computers, used in modern cars, has increased dramatically during the past decade. This evolution puts higher requirements on the communication networks that connect these computerized parts. It is among other things necessary to know exactly how long time each individual task in a computer system takes to execute and also important to assure that the system operates correctly in a worstcase scenario. Today, the worst-case execution time (WCET) of industrial applications is usually measured in a traditional way, called dynamic timing analysis. However, this method requires a lot of time from the system developer, who cannot guarantee that the worst-case has been found. What most of the software developers today are missing is an analysis tool that generates WCET estimates for programs statically. This can be performed by a method called static timing analysis that estimates the WCET of a program, without actually running it. Instead a WCET analysis tool is used that rely on models of a specific processor and the possible programs executions. Volcano Communications Technologies AB (VCT) is a company with a current tool chain for development of real-time communication solutions for embedded network systems, principally used within the car industry. This report gives an account of a study that has been done to examine if a commercial WCET analysis tool could be integrated into VCT’s current tool chain. If that would be possible, shorter development times and overall production costs could be fulfilled. The results show that an integration of a static analysis tool would be possible but requires a lot of workload and detailed knowledge about the analysed system from the user. The analysed parts have also been measured in a traditionally way with help of an oscilloscope, and the results have been compared to see how similar the generated WCETs are. These dynamic timing analyses were hard to perform and good results were difficult to achieve. On account of insufficient knowledge about the code and lack of time, the WCETs generated by the two methods were quite unreliable and different for some complex and static code snippets. The WCETs generated for some simpler and static code snippets were on the other hand more reliable and similar. The purpose with this study was however not to compare these estimates, but rather to investigate the possibility of applying a static WCET analysis method on VCT’s code and observe the difficulties that arise.

Bibtex

@mastersthesis{Byhlin548,
author = {Susanna Byhlin},
title = {Evaluation of Static Time Analysis for Volcano Communications Technologies AB},
month = {December},
year = {2004},
url = {http://www.es.mdu.se/publications/548-}
}