research-article

Compiler-assisted detection of transient memory errors

Authors:

Sanket Tavarageri,

Sriram Krishnamoorthy,

P. SadayappanAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '14: Proceedings of the 35th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

Pages 204 - 215

https://doi.org/10.1145/2594291.2594298

Published: 09 June 2014 Publication History

Abstract

The probability of bit flips in hardware memory systems is projected to increase significantly as memory systems continue to scale in size and complexity. Effective hardware-based error detection and correction require that the complete data path, involving all parts of the memory system, be protected with sufficient redundancy. First, this may be costly to employ on commodity computing platforms, and second, even on high-end systems, protection against multi-bit errors may be lacking. Therefore, augmenting hardware error detection schemes with software techniques is of considerable interest.

In this paper, we consider software-level mechanisms to comprehensively detect transient memory faults. We develop novel compile-time algorithms to instrument application programs with checksum computation codes to detect memory errors. Unlike prior approaches that employ checksums on computational and architectural states, our scheme verifies every data access and works by tracking variables as they are produced and consumed. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the proposed comprehensive error detection solution is viable as a completely software-only scheme. We also demonstrate that with limited hardware support, overheads of error detection can be further reduced.

References

[1]

A. Avizienis, G. C. Gilley, F. P. Mathur, D. A. Rennels, J. A. Rohr, and D. K. Rubin. The STAR (self-testing and repairing) computer: An investigation of the theory and practice of fault-tolerant computer design. IEEE Transactions on Computers, C-20(11), Nov 1971.

Digital Library

[2]

C. Bastoul, A. Cohen, S. Girbal, S. Sharma, and O. Temam. Putting polyhedral loop transformations to work. In Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing, 2004.

[3]

R. Baumann. Soft errors in advanced computer systems. Design & Test of Computers, IEEE, 22(3), 2005.

Digital Library

[4]

M. Blum, W. Evans, P. Gemmell, S. Kannan, and M. Naor. Checking the correctness of memories. Algorithmica, 12(2-3), 1994.

[5]

S. Borkar. Designing reliable systems from unreliable components: the challenges of transistor variability and degradation. Micro, IEEE, 25(6), 2005.

Digital Library

[6]

J. D. Bright, G. F. Sullivan, and G. M. Masson. Checking the integrity of trees. In Fault-Tolerant Computing, 1995.

Digital Library

[7]

G. Chen, M. Kandemir, and M. Karakoy. A data-centric approach to checksum reuse for array-intensive applications. In International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, 2005.

Digital Library

[8]

R. G. Dreslinski, M. Wieckowski, D. Blaauw, D. Sylvester, and T. Mudge. Near-threshold computing: Reclaiming moore's law through energy efficient integrated circuits. Proceedings of the IEEE, 98(2), 2010.

[9]

P. Feautrier. Dataflow analysis of array and scalar references. International Journal of Parallel Programming, 20(1), 1991.

[10]

P. Feautrier. Some efficient solutions to the affine scheduling problem: I. one-dimensional time. International journal of parallel programming, 21(5), 1992.

Digital Library

[11]

S. Girbal, N. Vasilache, C. Bastoul, A. Cohen, D. Parello, M. Sigler, and O. Temam. Semi-automatic composition of loop transformations for deep parallelism and memory hierarchies. International Journal of Parallel Programming, 34(3), 2006.

Digital Library

[12]

B. T. Gold, M. Ferdman, B. Falsafi, and K. Mai. Mitigating multi-bit soft errors in L1 caches using last-store prediction. In Workshop on Architectural Support for Gigascale Integration, 2007.

[13]

O. Goloubeva, M. Rebaudengo, M. Sonza Reorda, and M. Violante. Soft-error detection using control flow assertions. In Defect and Fault Tolerance in VLSI Systems, 2003.

Digital Library

[14]

M. Gomaa, C. Scarbrough, T. Vijaykumar, and I. Pomeranz. Transient-fault recovery for chip multiprocessors. In Computer Architecture, 2003.

Digital Library

[15]

M. Griebl, P. Feautrier, and C. Lengauer. Index set splitting. International Journal of Parallel Programming, 28(6), 2000.

[16]

S. K. S. Hari, S. V. Adve, and H. Naeimi. Low-cost program-level detectors for reducing silent data corruptions. In International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, 2012.

Digital Library

[17]

S. K. S. Hari, S. V. Adve, H. Naeimi, and P. Ramachandran. Relyzer: Exploiting application-level fault equivalence to analyze application resiliency to transient faults. In Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, ASPLOS, 2012.

Digital Library

[18]

K.-H. Huang and J. A. Abraham. Algorithm-based fault tolerance for matrix operations. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 100(6), 1984.

Digital Library

[19]

ISL: Integer Set Library. http://garage.kotnet.org/~skimo/isl/.

[20]

Y. Liang, Y. Zhang, M. Jette, A. Sivasubramaniam, and R. Sahoo. BlueGene/L failure analysis and prediction models. In International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, 2006.

Digital Library

[21]

S. Liu, K. Pattabiraman, T. Moscibroda, and B. G. Zorn. Flikker: Saving dram refresh-power through critical data partitioning. In Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, ASPLOS, 2011.

Digital Library

[22]

J. Maiz, S. Hareland, K. Zhang, and P. Armstrong. Characterization of multi-bit soft error events in advanced SRAMs. In IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, 2003.

[23]

T. C. Maxino. The effectiveness of checksums for embedded networks. Master's thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, 2006.

[24]

S. E. Michalak, K. W. Harris, N. W. Hengartner, B. E. Takala, and S. A. Wender. Predicting the number of fatal soft errors in los alamos national laboratory's ASC Q supercomputer. IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, 5(3), 2005.

[25]

J. Nickolls and W. J. Dally. The GPU computing era. IEEE micro, 30(2), 2010.

Digital Library

[26]

M. Nicolaidis. Efficient implementations of self-checking adders and ALUs. In Fault-Tolerant Computing, 1993.

[27]

N. Oh, P. P. Shirvani, and E. J. McCluskey. Control-flow checking by software signatures. IEEE Transactions on Reliability, 51(1), 2002.

[28]

N. Oh, P. P. Shirvani, and E. J. McCluskey. Error detection by duplicated instructions in super-scalar processors. IEEE Transactions on Reliability, 51(1), 2002.

[29]

K. Osada, K. Yamaguchi, Y. Saitoh, and T. Kawahara. SRAM immunity to cosmic-ray-induced multierrors based on analysis of an induced parasitic bipolar effect. IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 39(5), 2004.

[30]

T. Osada and M. Godwin. International technology roadmap for semiconductors. 1999.

[31]

K. Pattabiraman, G. P. Saggese, D. Chen, Z. Kalbarczyk, and R. K. Iyer. Dynamic derivation of application-specific error detectors and their implementation in hardware. In European Dependable Computing Conference, 2006.

Digital Library

[32]

PLUTO: A polyhedral automatic parallelizer and locality optimizer for multicores. http://pluto-compiler.sourceforge.net.

[33]

R. Ponnusamy, J. Saltz, and A. Choudhary. Runtime compilation techniques for data partitioning and communication schedule reuse. In Supercomputing, 1993.

Digital Library

[34]

H. Quinn and P. Graham. Terrestrial-based radiation upsets: A cautionary tale. In Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines, 2005.

Digital Library

[35]

G. A. Reis, J. Chang, N. Vachharajani, R. Rangan, and D. I. August. SWIFT: Software implemented fault tolerance. In Code generation and optimization, 2005.

Digital Library

[36]

E. Rotenberg. AR-SMT: A microarchitectural approach to fault tolerance in microprocessors. In Fault-Tolerant Computing, 1999.

Digital Library

[37]

B. Schroeder, E. Pinheiro, and W.-D. Weber. DRAM errors in the wild: a large-scale field study. In Measurement and modeling of computer systems, 2009.

Digital Library

[38]

P. P. Shirvani, N. R. Saxena, and E. J. McCluskey. Software-implemented EDAC protection against SEUs. IEEE Transactions on Reliability, 49(3), 2000.

[39]

A. Shye, T. Moseley, V. J. Reddi, J. Blomstedt, and D. A. Connors. Using process-level redundancy to exploit multiple cores for transient fault tolerance. In Dependable Systems and Networks, 2007.

Digital Library

[40]

S. Verdoolaege. isl: An integer set library for the polyhedral model. Mathematical Software--ICMS 2010, 2010.

Digital Library

[41]

N. J. Wang and S. J. Patel. ReStore: Symptom-based soft error detection in microprocessors. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 3(3), 2006.

Digital Library

[42]

D. H. Yoon and M. Erez. Flexible cache error protection using an ECC FIFO. In High Performance Computing Networking, Storage and Analysis, SC, 2009.

Digital Library

[43]

D. H. Yoon and M. Erez. Memory mapped ECC: low-cost error protection for last level caches. In International Symposium on Computer Architecture, ISCA, 2009.

Digital Library

[44]

J. F. Ziegler, H. W. Curtis, H. P. Muhlfeld, C. J. Montrose, and B. Chin. IBM experiments in soft fails in computer electronics (1978--1994). IBM journal of research and development, 40(1), 1996.

Digital Library

Cited By

Briggs IDas ABaranowski MSharma VKrishnamoorthy SRakamarić ZGopalakrishnan G(2019)FailAmpACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization10.1145/336938116:4(1-21)Online publication date: 18-Dec-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3369381
Borchert CSchirmeier HSpinczyk O(2017)Generic Soft-Error Detection and Correction for Concurrent Data StructuresIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2015.242783214:1(22-36)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TDSC.2015.2427832
Subasi OKrishnamoorthy S(2017)A Gaussian Process Approach for Effective Soft Error Detection2017 IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (CLUSTER)10.1109/CLUSTER.2017.129(608-612)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/CLUSTER.2017.129
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Compiler-assisted detection of transient memory errors
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers

Recommendations

Compiler-assisted detection of transient memory errors
PLDI '14

The probability of bit flips in hardware memory systems is projected to increase significantly as memory systems continue to scale in size and complexity. Effective hardware-based error detection and correction require that the complete data path, ...
Compiler-assisted dynamic scratch-pad memory management with space overlapping for embedded systems

Scratch-pad memory (SPM), a small, fast, software-managed on-chip SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) is widely used in embedded systems. With the ever-widening performance gap between processors and main memory, it is very important to reduce the ...
A low-complexity coding method for mitigating retention errors and read-disturb errors in TLC NAND flash memory
RACS '22: Proceedings of the Conference on Research in Adaptive and Convergent Systems

When the P/E cycles of TLC NAND flash memory is exceeding its limit, data can only be safely stored in the TLC NAND flash memory for a limited retention time or a limited read cycles. As the retention time or the read cycles increases beyond a certain ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

PLDI '14: Proceedings of the 35th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 2014

619 pages

ISBN:9781450327848

DOI:10.1145/2594291

General Chair:
Michael O'Boyle
University of Edinburgh
,
Program Chair:
Keshav Pingali
University of Texas, Austin

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 49, Issue 6
PLDI '14
June 2014
598 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2666356
Editor:
Andy Gill
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 June 2014

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

Conference

PLDI '14

Sponsor:

PLDI '14: ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation

June 9 - 11, 2014

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

PLDI '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 52 of 287 submissions, 18%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 406 of 2,067 submissions, 20%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

9
Total Citations
View Citations
568
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)37
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)2

Reflects downloads up to 05 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Briggs IDas ABaranowski MSharma VKrishnamoorthy SRakamarić ZGopalakrishnan G(2019)FailAmpACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization10.1145/336938116:4(1-21)Online publication date: 18-Dec-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3369381
Borchert CSchirmeier HSpinczyk O(2017)Generic Soft-Error Detection and Correction for Concurrent Data StructuresIEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing10.1109/TDSC.2015.242783214:1(22-36)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TDSC.2015.2427832
Subasi OKrishnamoorthy S(2017)A Gaussian Process Approach for Effective Soft Error Detection2017 IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (CLUSTER)10.1109/CLUSTER.2017.129(608-612)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/CLUSTER.2017.129
Tao DSong SKrishnamoorthy SWu PLiang XZhang EKerbyson DChen ZNakashima HTaura KLange J(2016)New-SumProceedings of the 25th ACM International Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1145/2907294.2907306(43-55)Online publication date: 31-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2907294.2907306
Mittal SVetter J(2016)A Survey of Techniques for Modeling and Improving Reliability of Computing SystemsIEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems10.1109/TPDS.2015.242617927:4(1226-1238)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TPDS.2015.2426179
Narmour LDerrien SRajopadhye S(2023)Automatic Algorithm-Based Fault Tolerance (AABFT) of Stencil Computations2023 32nd International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (PACT)10.1109/PACT58117.2023.00024(187-198)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/PACT58117.2023.00024
Subasi ODi SBalaprakash PUnsal OLabarta JCristal AKrishnamoorthy SCappello F(2017)MACORD: Online Adaptive Machine Learning Framework for Silent Error Detection2017 IEEE International Conference on Cluster Computing (CLUSTER)10.1109/CLUSTER.2017.128(717-724)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/CLUSTER.2017.128
Cong JYu CMarculescu DLiu F(2015)Impact of Loop Transformations on Software ReliabilityProceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design10.5555/2840819.2840859(278-285)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2840819.2840859
Cong JYu C(2015)Impact of loop transformations on software reliability2015 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD)10.1109/ICCAD.2015.7372581(278-285)Online publication date: Nov-2015
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCAD.2015.7372581

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten