2026-07-22T13:39:22Z https://drops.dagstuhl.de/oai

oai:drops-oai.dagstuhl.de:7158 2024-03-06T10:39:55Z ddc:004 open_access

Write-Back Caches in WCET Analysis Blaß, Tobias Hahn, Sebastian Reineke, Jan write-back caches real-time systems WCET analysis cache analysis Write-back caches are a popular choice in embedded microprocessors as they promise higher performance than write-through caches. So far, however, their use in hard real-time systems has been prohibited by the lack of adequate worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis support. In this paper, we introduce a new approach to statically analyze the behavior of write-back caches. Prior work took an "eviction-focussed perspective", answering for each potential cache miss: May this miss evict a dirty cache line and thus cause a write back? We complement this approach by exploring a "store-focussed perspective", answering for each store: May this store dirtify a clean cache line and thus cause a write back later on? Experimental evaluation demonstrates substantial precision improvements when both perspectives are combined. For most benchmarks, write-back caches are then preferable to write-through caches in terms of the computed WCET bounds. Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik Tobias Blaß and Sebastian Hahn and Jan Reineke 2017 Is Part Of LIPIcs, Volume 76, 29th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS 2017) InProceedings Text doc-type:ResearchArticle publishedVersion application/pdf doi:10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2017.26 urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-71589 https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ECRTS.2017.26 eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode