LDRA delivers assembler level support for MIPS processors, enabling DO-178B certification

Posted by John McHale
WIRRAL, England, 31 Jan. 2011. LDRA now supports assembly-level code for MIPS processors. Targeting high reliability applications in aviation, satellite, medical, and aerospace, the LDRA tool suite provides assembler support for Green Hills and GNU variants of MIPS assembly along with C-style macro syntax. As a result legacy applications can be certified to DO-178B and FDA certification.
Legacy applications frequently lack source code, making it impossible to provide source–to–object-code traceability that verifies that no code can trigger unexpected or errant behavior when the application executes, LDRA officials say. With LDRA assembler support, applications lacking source code can be disassembled into object code that boasts the complete range of artifacts needed for certification. Reports can then link source and object code, fulfilling the structural coverage analysis of DO-178B certification and other similar requirements.
MIPS processors deliver very large I/O throughput and fast processing capabilities with minimal power and weight, making them ideal for the computationally intensive aerospace environment. To ensure complete code coverage, LDRA's tool suite accounts for the MIPS processor's ability to execute multiple instructions simultaneously and predicatively execute instructions down the pipeline. The LDRA tool suite accurately records coverage information, ensuring that any code optimized for the MIPS architecture is fully accounted for.
"The MIPS architecture with its unique execution capabilities offers high-end applications additional processing power," says Ian Hennell, LDRA operations director. "Thanks to LDRA assembler support, legacy applications on the MIPS architecture can meet new certification standards, even though they may lack full high-level code, involve hand-coded assembly, or contain board-specific BIOS code that previously could not be certified. With this integration, the LDRA tool suite delivers the necessary artifacts to certify these legacy applications, saving companies the development and cost of writing, testing, and verifying new code."
LDRA tool suite for MIPS assembler code enables the certification of BIOS and board-level support as well as hand-coded assembly for all MIPS processors including those environmentally hardened. The LDRA tool suite for assembly code provides the full range of verification artifacts needed for mission- or safety-critical certification. In addition, the DO-178B Tool Qualification Support Package for Object Code Verification provides complete source–to–object-code traceability for user-specified environments.