Accurate Determination of Loop Iterations for Worst-Case Execution Time Analysis

Mark Bartlett, Iain Bate, Dimitar Kazakov
2010 IEEE transactions on computers  
Determination of accurate estimates for the Worst-Case Execution Time of a program is essential for guaranteeing the correct temporal behaviour of any Real-Time System. Of particular importance is tightly bounding the number of iterations of loops in the program or excessive undue pessimism can result. This paper presents a novel approach to determining the number of iterations of a loop for such analysis. Program traces are collected and analysed allowing the number of loop executions to be
more » ... ametrically determined safely and precisely under certain conditions. The approach is mathematically proven to be safe and its practicality is demonstrated on a series of benchmarks.
doi:10.1109/tc.2010.59 fatcat:frq3my5mwfetnfwmvkkdsgzw2y