Embedded Systems and Software Validation

Modern embedded systems require high performance, low cost and low power consumption. Such systems typically consist of a heterogeneous collection of processors, specialized memory subsystems, and partially programmable or fixed-function components. This heterogeneity, coupled with issues such as hardware/software partitioning, mapping, scheduling, etc., leads to a large number of design possibilities, making performance debugging and validation of such systems a difficult problem. Embedded systems are used to control safety critical applications such as flight control, automotive electronics and healthcare monitoring. Clearly, developing reliable software/systems for such applications is of utmost importance. This book describes a host of debugging and verification methods which can help to achieve this goal. It covers the major abstraction levels of embedded systems design, starting from software analysis and micro-architectural modeling, to modeling of resource sharing and communication at the system level. This book: integrates formal techniques of validation for hardware/software with debugging and validation of embedded system design flows; and, includes practical case studies to answer the questions: does a design meet its requirements, if not, then which parts of the system are responsible for the violation, and once they are identified, then how should the design be suitably modified?