Skip to main content
Log in

Software and Hardware Techniques for SEU Detection in IP Processors

  • Published:
Journal of Electronic Testing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In the recent years both software and hardware techniques have been adopted to carry out reliable designs, aimed at autonomously detecting the occurrence of faults, to allow discarding erroneous data and possibly performing the recovery of the system. The aim of this paper is the introduction of a combined use of software and hardware approaches to achieve a complete fault coverage in generic IP processors, with respect to SEU faults. Software techniques are preferably adopted to reduce the necessity and costs of modifying the processor architecture; since a complete fault coverage cannot be achieved, partial hardware redundancy techniques are then introduced to deal with the remaining, not covered, faults. The paper presents the methodological approach adopted to achieve the complete fault coverage, the proposed resulting architecture, and the experimental results gathered from the analysis of the fault injection campaigns.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Alkhalifa Z, Nair VSS, Krishnamurthy N, Abraham JA (1999) Design and evaluation of system-level checks for on-line control flow error detection. IEEE Trans Parallel Distrib Syst 10(6):627–641

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Bernardi P, Bolzani L, Rebaudengo M, Sonza Reorda M, Violante M (2005) An integrated approach for increasing the soft-error detection capabilities in SoCs processors. In Proc. 20th IEEE Int. Symp. on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, pp 445–453

  3. Bolchini C, Miele A, Pomante L, Salice F, Sciuto D (2004) Reliable system co-design: the FIR case study. In Proc. 19th IEEE Int. Symp. on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems. Cannes, France, pp 433–441

  4. Bolchini C, Miele A, Salice F, Sciuto D (2005) A model of soft error effects in generic IP processors. In Proc. 20th IEEE Int. Symp. on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, pp 334–342

  5. Bolchini C, Pomante L, Salice F, Sciuto D (2005) Reliable system specification for self-checking data-paths. In Proc. of the Conf. on Design, Automation and Test in Europe. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA, pp 1278–1283

  6. Bolchini C, Miele A, Rebaudengo M, Sterpone L, Violante M, Sciuto D (2006) Combined software and hardware techniques for the design of reliable IP processors. In Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, pp 265–273

  7. Civera P, Macchiarulo L, Rebaudengo M, Sonza Reorda M, Violante M (2002) An FPGA-based approach for speeding-up fault injection campaigns on safety-critical circuits. Journal of Electronic Testing: Theory and Applications 18(3):261–271, June

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Dodd PE, Massengill LW (2003) Basic mechanisms and modeling of single-event upset in digital microelectronics. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 50(3):583–602, June

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Gaisler J (2003) The LEON2 IEEE-1754 (SPARC V8) Processor http://www.gaisler.com

  10. Goloubeva O, Rebaudengo M, Reorda MS, Violante M (2005) Improved software-based processor control-flow errors detection technique. In Reliability and Maintainability Symposium, 2005. Proceedings. Annual, pp 583–589

  11. Rebaudengo M, Sonza Reorda M, Torchiano M, Violante M (1999) Soft-error detection through software fault-tolerance techniques. In Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. on Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, pp 210–218

  12. Rebaudengo M, Sonza Reorda M, Violante M, Nicolescu B, Velazco R (2002) Coping with SEUs/SETs in microprocessors by means of low-cost solutions: a comparative study. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci (49)3:1491–1495, June

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Ziegler F et al (1996) Terrestrial cosmic rays and soft errors. IBM J Res Develop 40(1)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to C. Bolchini.

Additional information

Responsible Editor: N. A. Touba

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bolchini, C., Miele, A., Rebaudengo, M. et al. Software and Hardware Techniques for SEU Detection in IP Processors. J Electron Test 24, 35–44 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-007-5028-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-007-5028-0

Keywords

Navigation