Symbolic state traversal for WCET analysis

Static worst-case execution time analysis of real-time tasks is based on abstract models that capture the timing behavior of the processor on which the tasks run. For complex processors, task-level execution time bounds are obtained by a state exploration which involves the abstract model and the program. Partial state space exploration is not sound. A full exploration can become too expensive. We present a novel symbolic method for WCET analysis based on abstract pipeline models which produces sound results and is scalable in terms of the considered hardware states.