Static Memory and Execution Time Analysis of Embedded Code

Failure of a safety-critical application on an embedded processor can lead to severe damage or even loss of life. Here we are concerned with two kinds of failure: stack overflow, which usually leads to run-time errors that are difficult to diagnose, and failure to meet deadlines, which is catastrophical for systems with hard real-time characteristics. Classical validation methods like code review and testing with repeated measurements require a lot of effort, are expensive, and do not really help in proving the absence of such errors. AbsInt’s tools StackAnalyzer and aiT (timing analyzer) provide a solution to this problem. They use abstract interpretation as a formal method that allows to obtain statements valid for all program runs with all inputs.