A More Precise Abstract Domain for Multi-Level Caches for Tighter WCET Analysis

As demand for computational power of embedded applications has increased, their architectures have become more complex. One result of this increased complexity are real-time embedded systems with set-associative multi-level caches. Multi-level caches complicate the process of program analysis techniques such as Worst Case Execution Time (WCET). To address this need the authors have developed a sound cache behavior analysis that handles multi-level instruction and data caches. Their technique relies on a new abstraction, live caches, which models relationships between cache levels to improve accuracy. Their analysis improves upon previous multi-level cache analysis in three ways.