Title
Improving the Confidence in Measurement-Based Timing Analysis
Abstract
Measurement-based timing analysis (MBTA) is a hybrid approach that combines execution-time measurements with static program analysis techniques to obtain an estimate of the worst-case execution time (WCET) of a program. The most challenging part of MBTA is test data generation. Choosing an adequate set of test vectors determines safety and efficiency of the overall analysis. So far, there are no feasible criteria that determine how well the worst-case temporal behavior of program parts is covered by a given test-suite. In this paper we introduce a relative safety metric that compares test suites with respect to how well the observed worst-case behavior of program parts is exercised. Using this metric, we empirically show that common code coverage criteria from the domain of functional testing can produce unsafe WCET estimates in the context of MBTA for systems with a processor like the TriCore 1796. Further, we use the relative safety metric to examine coverage criteria that require all feasible pairs of, e.g., basic blocks to be exercised in combination. These are shown to be superior to code coverage criteria from the domain of functional testing, but there is still a chance that an unsafe WCET estimate is derived by MBTA in our experimental setup. Based on the outcomes of our evaluation we introduce and examine Balanced Path Generation, an input data generation technique that combines the advantages of all evaluated coverage criteria and random input data generation.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1109/ISORC.2011.27
ISORC
Keywords
Field
DocType
measurement-based timing analysis,unsafe wcet estimate,coverage criterion,program part,observed worst-case behavior,static program analysis technique,functional testing,overall analysis,input data generation technique,common code coverage criterion,static program analysis,timing analysis,test data generation,hardware,software metrics,pipelines,indexing terms,real time systems,worst case execution time,benchmark testing,code coverage
Code coverage,Static program analysis,Worst-case execution time,Computer science,Functional testing,Real-time computing,Static timing analysis,Software metric,Benchmark (computing),Test data generation
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
7
0.48
14
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Sven Bünte1152.01
Michael Zolda2423.57
Michael Tautschnig342525.84
Raimund Kirner437240.22