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Measurement and tracing methods for timing analysis

Independently and in combination with modelling methods

  • ALL-TIMES
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Abstract

Observing the timing properties of actual software provides information not derivable from pure modelling of the hardware, software and test data. Equally, modelling provides worst-case timing values that cannot be realistically determined from only testing and measurement. From this observation, we develop a combined methodology, where measured and modelled results are used in turn to build a complete, unified approach to software timing analysis. Beyond this, we develop toward a powerful and symbiotic process, where that data can be freely and reliably exchanged, and that is greater than the obvious sum of the parts.

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Notes

  1. A basic block is a sequence of instructions with exactly one entry point at the start and one exit point at the end. The computation time for a basic block is therefore independent of software conditional branches and is determined entirely by hardware features.

  2. The halting problem is an undecidable problem that would have to be solved by a tool that could perform arbitrary timing analysis. Therefore no such tool can exist.

  3. The need for rational values arises when times are driven by more than one different digital clock. For example, a CPU may run at 100 MHz and receive interrupts from one external device clocked at 60 MHz and another clocked at 5.4 MHz. After whole numbers of clock ticks on diverse clocks have been scaled to make them compatible, the results are not always exactly expressible as a decimal. Rounding will generally be applied at some stage in timing analysis but at least no information is lost in the ATF transfer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GLIWA GmbH Embedded Systems, Winterstr. 9a, 82362 , Weilheim i.OB., Germany

    Nicholas Merriam & Peter Gliwa

  2. Rapita Systems Ltd, IT Centre, York Science Park, York, YO10 5NP, UK

    Ian Broster

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  1. Nicholas Merriam
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  2. Peter Gliwa
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  3. Ian Broster
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Correspondence to Nicholas Merriam.

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Merriam, N., Gliwa, P. & Broster, I. Measurement and tracing methods for timing analysis. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 15, 9–28 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-012-0266-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-012-0266-6

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