Embedded Software Component Quality and Certification

Component-based software engineering (CBSE) is being used in a wide variety of application areas, including embedded systems. It promises increased reuse leading to higher quality and reduced time to market. The correct operation of the components is often critical for business success and, in some cases, human safety. In this way, assessment, evaluation and certification of embedded software components has become a compulsory and crucial part of any CBSE lifecycle. A risk of selecting a product with unknown quality properties is no longer acceptable and, when happened, may cause catastrophic results. Thus, the embedded software components quality evaluation has become an increasingly essential activity in order to bring reliability in (re)using embedded software components. In this sense, this paper presents a survey of embedded software component quality and certification research.