LDRA slashes time and cost of certifying HC08/HCS08 to stringent avionics, medical and automotive standards

WIRRAL, UK: LDRA, the leader in standards compliance, automated software verification, source code analysis and test tools, delivers full certification capabilities for Freescale’s HC08 and HCS08 applications.

By exploiting the resources of the CodeWarrior IDE, LDRA enables developers to run host-style analysis and test generation on resource-constrained processors. Now, automotive, industrial and avionics applications using the HC08/HCS08 processors can automate testing and verification processes, reducing the cost of certification.

The HC08 and HCS08 fill an increasingly important role in cost-effective, low-power applications that must meet stringent certification requirements. Using the LDRA tool suite, developers can achieve programming compliance with industry standards, such as MISRA, IEC 61508, ISO 26262 and DO-178B, to the highest levels. The LDRA Tool Qualification Support Pack then documents the software development process, providing the qualified output needed for certification.

The integration of the LDRA tool suite with CodeWarrior for HC08 and HCS08 streamlines user interaction. With compiler and debugger control, developers gain easy access to data on the target that can be output to the host. In addition to providing static and dynamic analysis of the target via LDRA Testbed, test cases can be generated via LDRA’s TBeXtreme test case facility. These test cases can be generated and validated on the host and then rerun for qualification on the target.

“The most stringent certification standards consistently call for on-target analysis and verification,” noted Ian Hennell, LDRA Operations Director. “Achieving such detailed analysis on an 8-bit platform demands tools that are scalable and well integrated. The LDRA tool suite has consistently delivered sophisticated testing capabilities, even on tight, resource-constrained processors, such as Freescale’s HC08 and HCS08.”

Thanks to this integration, developers can control their application testing from the CodeWarrior environment. Developers can automate processes such as build, execution and coverage collection from the CodeWarrior IDE, allowing the LDRA tool suite to be used in the same way it would be on host targets. Using scripts, LDRA tools can control the CodeWarrior environment, providing data capture from the target via a device, such as P&E’s background debug mode probe. Similar control scripts can retrieve the data when using the simulator.