Temporal Characterization of Embedded Systems Using Nexus

Integration of commercial off-the-shelf components in real-time embedded solutions increases the necessity of verifying the temporal properties exhibited by each system component in presence of faults. To face this challenge, a trade-off must be found between the level of temporal intrusion induced in the system, and the amount of information to be gathered from the targeted component. Moreover, some certification processes require real-time systems to be evaluated under real-life conditions, i.e. without stopping their execution. This paper argues that on-chip debugging (OCD) facilities provided by the Nexus standard interface can be a good choice to provide temporal characterization solutions meeting previous requirements. It describes an approach to obtain temporal measures from realtime system components in a non-intrusive manner