Title: Certifying Multicore Timing Analysis for Real-Time Systems
Speaker: Dr Guillem Bernat, Rapita Systems
Abstract: The potential for increased performance by using multicore processors is not in question. Their use offers a solution to break the memory, power and instruction level parallelism (ILP) walls that prevent single-core platforms from meeting the increasing demands of modern embedded avionics software.
In the aerospace industry, adherence to safety guidelines such as DO-178B/C is expected. To adhere, applicants must show that software always completes operations within a specified time (commonly called the worst-case execution time or WCET). Approaches to calculate WCET on single-core systems are not directly transferrable to multicore systems, however, requiring the use of novel technologies.
In this presentation, we demonstrate a practical approach for calculating WCET on multicore platforms that is applicable to the DO-178B/C environment. This involves using high-quality timing analysis tools to understand the timing behaviour of the CPU by using “micro benchmarks”, and assessing the impact of interference from multicore resource contention by applying carefully-constructed “adversaries” that force high levels of contention.
Biography: Dr Guillem Bernat is the CEO and a founder of Rapita Systems. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the Universitat de les Illes Balears in Spain, in 1998 and then took a lecturing position at the Real-Time Systems Group at the University of York in the UK. In 2004 he founded Rapita Systems to commercialise technology for measurement based worst-case execution time analysis technology. Rapita Systems has grown to provide a set of software verification tools for safety critical systems including timing analysis, WCET analysis and structural code coverage to satisfy DO-178B/C and ISO26262 objectives. Dr. Bernat has more than 70 published papers in international conferences and Journals, has lectured extensively in real-time systems and is a frequent speaker at international conferences.