MEMICS - memory interval constraint solving of (concurrent) machine code

Abstract

Runtime errors occurring sporadically in automotive control units are often hard to detect. A common reason for such errors are critical race conditions. The introduction of multicore hardware enables software to be run in parallel, and hence, drastically increases the vulnerability to such errors. Race conditions are difficult to discover by testing or monitoring, only. Hence, a static analysis of code is required to effectively reduce the occurrence of such errors. In this paper we introduce a new Bounded Model Checking tool, which in its core is an Interval Constraint Solver, operating on a machine code based model and is able to handle memory instructions directly. As control units are usually running on task-based operating systems like AUTOSAR or OSEK, our tool features a task model, which is able to handle sequential and concurrent task scheduling.