A Compiler-Assisted On-Chip Assigned-Signature Control Flow Checking

As device sizes continue shrinking, lower charges are needed to activate gates, and consequently ever smaller external events (such as single ionizing particles of naturally occurring radiation) will be able to upset the correct functioning of complex modern microprocessors. Therefore, designers of future processors must take this new fact into account and should incorporate in their design faulttolerant features which will allow processors to continue operating correctly even when such faults have occurred. Many faulty conditions are control flow errors which cause processors to violate the correct sequencing of instructions. Indeed, they amount to between 33% and 77% of all run-time errors. We present here a new compile-time signature assignment algorithm (the signature checking technique is a well-known approach to detect control flow errors). We also present the theoretical proof as well as the fault detection coverage analysis of our algorithm. We then describe the required enhanc...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: APCSAC
• Authors: Xiaobin Li, Jean-Luc Gaudiot
• Keywords: APCSAC 2004, Computer Architecture, Control Flow Errors, Run-time Errors, Single Ionizing Particles