Measurement-Based Probabilistic Timing Analysis and Its Impact on Processor Architecture

Critical Real-Time Embedded Systems (CRTES) industry needs increasingly complex hardware to attain the performance/cost ratio required to keep competitive edge in the market. Worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis is central to CRTES development. Whereas current timing analysis techniques are sound, their viability is hampered by the soaring cost of acquiring detailed knowledge of the internal operation and state of the system, at both software and hardware level. This is a major hurdle to using them for increasingly complex hardware platforms. Measurement-Based Probabilistic Timing Analysis (PTA) reduces the cost of acquiring the knowledge needed for computing trustworthy WCET bounds. This paper presents the changes required to hardware design to facilitate the use of the PTA techniques.