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.

* 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;
* Integrates formal techniques of validation for hardware/software with debugging and validation of embedded system design flows;
* 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?


Introduction; Specification Debugging; Communication Debugging; Performance Debugging; Software Debugging; Conclusions and Future Directions.