Esterel Technologies and AbsInt form Technology Partnership

Esterel SCADE provides a full suite of Model-Based Design (MBD) tools from formal graphical design capture and validation down to embedded C code generation for mission and safety-critical production use. Esterel SCADE is the only MBD solution to offer DO-178B qualified C code generation up to level A, certified IEC 61508 C code generation up to SIL 3 and certified EN 50128 C code generation up to SIL 4.

AbsInt’s aiT and StackAnalyzer products provide a unique capability of assessing worst-case execution time and stack usage of embedded system code, fully taking into account the characteristics of the various hardware platforms.

The coupling of Esterel SCADE with AbsInt’s aiT and StackAnalyzer products provides optimal visibility into the run-time performance of the system by reporting the WCET and stack usage of each design element, at the model level.

By raising the level of abstraction with these breakthrough analysis capabilities, embedded software developers can quickly identify and eliminate potential design flaws. In fact, without having written a single line of code, developers can determine which part of the design may contribute most to WCET or stack usage and refactor the design accordingly, saving considerable development cycle time and optimizing the performance of the application right from the model level. Furthermore, Esterel SCADE includes customizable report generation and „diff“ capabilities that allow, at the click of a button, an application developer to assess the performance impact of code generation and compilation options on each and every design element.

Although available for review now, the integrated solution will be delivered within SCADE Suite 6.1, scheduled in Q3/2008. Esterel Technologies and AbsInt have cooperated on the partnership and integration in the framework of the INTEREST FP6 European R&D project.

“Our partnership with Esterel Technologies provides a breakthrough in how timing validation tools for real-time embedded systems are going to be deployed worldwide”, said Christian Ferdinand, AbsInt’s CEO. “Now customers will be able to get their safety-critical products validated according to timing and stack usage constraints much more easily and in a fraction of the time taken today using manual methods.”

“Our partnership with AbsInt helps solve the problems of time and expense associated with validating the real-time characteristics of embedded system development”, said Eric Bantegnie, President and CEO of Esterel Technologies. “Being able to automate the import of WCET and stack usage analysis into Esterel SCADE’s software development and qualified code generation environment improves communication across the development team, shortens the design, implementation, and code qualification, and ultimately results in highly efficient deployed code.“