You need a qualified compiler to comply with regulations as set out in ISO 26262 and other functional safety standards. Besides meeting this requirement, qualification also increases confidence in your compiler and decreases the effort of application development, testing and verification in particular, because you know you work with a trusted tool. We will walk you through the 3 options to achieve this goal.
Option 1
You acquire a pre-qualified compiler
A pre-qualified compiler has been tested and qualified by a compiler vendor. The qualification report will tell you the use cases that the compiler has been qualified for, and the functional safety standards to which it has been qualified. Pre-qualification must match precisely with your use case. Compilers have hundreds of options that impact the generated code. Every combination of those options is a different use case because of the linear flow of program transformations inside the compiler.
Option 2
You qualify your compiler in-house with SuperTest
With SuperTest, you can tailor the test configuration to your specific use case requirements. This gives you enormous flexibility, not just to qualify exactly for your option configuration, but also to change it when dictated by circumstance. You can easily fit the process to a new version of the compiler, or use the same qualification process in another project. Another good reason to qualify your compiler in-house is to independently verify its conformance. Qualifying your compiler with SuperTest makes sure that it behaves according to the ISO language specification, and just as importantly, identifies where it doesn’t.
Option 3
You ask Solid Sands for support
We can support you and qualify your compiler for your specific use case with SuperTest. The results of our compiler qualification service, and any compiler defects detected during qualification, are detailed in a comprehensive qualification report that matches the requirements of the applicable functional safety standard.
Best choice
The best choice for your situation depends on many factors, including use case, flexibility, safety, conformance, confidence, cost and schedule.
We always recommend starting compiler qualification early in your project. That is when you are most flexible and adapting to compiler defects has minimal impact. Yet, feel free to contact us when you find yourself in the situation that you need to get your compiler qualified before a rapidly approaching deadline. You would be in good company and those that went before you love us for our cooperative mindset.
Did we already mention that we never tested a compiler without finding at least one defect?
Give us a call if you want to know more.
Dr. Marcel Beemster, CTO
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