The SACRES project is an Esprit R&D project, SACRES members are : Siemens ( Lead partner), i-Logix, TNI (Techniques Nouvelles d'Informatique), OFFIS, INRIA, the Weizmann Institute of Science, British Aerospace, SNECMA.

As its name indicates, SACRES is dealing with the development of new design methodologies and associated tools for safety critical embedded systems. Main targeted users are aeronautics, automobile, process control and energy. Emphasis has been put on formal techniques for modular verification of the specifications, distributed code generation, and generated code validation against specifications. These techniques aim at making more flexible the exploration of the software life cycle. Verification of the specifications and generated code validation aim at helping for certification of the overall design. Distributed code generation aims at reducing the dependency of the design with respect to the target supporting architecture. In all cases, modularity helps reuse of existing designs, and makes it possible to address much larger systems. A central item of SACRES is the DC+ format for
synchronous languages, which provides the common semantic framework for all tools as well as end user specification formalisms (Statemate and Sildex /Signal).

Keywords : embedded systems, safety critical systems, modular verification, distributed code generation, code validation and certification, synchronous languages, Statecharts, Signal.