A Framework to Quantify the Overestimations of Static WCET Analysis

To reduce complexity while computing an upper bound on the worst-case execution time, static WCET analysis performs over-approximations. This feeds the general feeling that static WCET estimations can be far above the real WCET. This feeling is strengthened when these estimations are compared to measured execution times: generally, it is very unlikely to capture the worstcase from observations, then the difference between the highest watermark and the proven WCET upper bound might be considerable. In this paper, we introduce a framework to quantify the possible overestimation on WCET upper bounds obtained by static analysis. The objective is to derive a lower bound on the WCET to complement the upper bound. 1998 ACM Subject Classification C.3 Computer Systems Organization – Special-Purpose and Application-Based Systems – Real-Time and Embedded Systems