An efficient algorithm for parametric WCET calculation

Static WCET analysis is a process dedicated to derive a safe upper bound of the worst-case execution time of a program. In many real-time systems, however, a constant global WCET estimate is not always so useful since a program may behave very differently depending on its configuration or mode. A parametric WCET analysis derives the upper bound as a formula rather than a constant. This paper presents a new algorithm that can obtain a safe parametric estimate of the WCET of a program. This algorithm is evaluated on a large set of benchmarks and compared to a previous approach to parametric WCET calculation. The evaluation shows that the new algorithm, to the cost of some imprecision, scales much better and can handle more realistic programs than the previous approach.