TY - CHAP
T1 - Self-stabilizing microprocessor analyzing and overcoming soft-errors (Extended abstract)
AU - Dolev, Shlomi
AU - Haviv, Yinnon A.
PY - 2004/1/1
Y1 - 2004/1/1
N2 - Soft-errors are changes in memory value caused by cosmic rays. Decrease in computing features size, decrease in power usage and shorting the micro-cycle period, enhances the influence of soft-errors. Self-stabilizing systems is designed to be started in an arbitrary, possibly corrupted state, due to, say, soft errors, and to converge to a desired behavior. Self-stabilization is defined by the state space of the components, and essentially is a well founded, clearly defined, form of the terms: self-healing, automatic-recovery, automatic-repair, and autonomic-computing. To implement a self-stabilizing system one needs to ensure that the micro-processor that executes the program is self-stabilizing. The self-stabilizing microprocessor copes with any combination of soft errors, converging to perform fetch-decode-execute in fault free periods. Still, it is important that the micro-processor will avoid convergence periods as possible, by masking the effect of soft errors immediately. In this work we present design schemes for self-stabilizing microprocessor, and a new technique for analyzing the effect of soft errors. Previous schemes for analyzing the effect of soft errors were based on simulations. In contrast, our scheme computes lower bound on the micro-processor reliability and enables the micro-processor designer to evaluate the reliability of the design, and to identify reliability bottlenecks.
AB - Soft-errors are changes in memory value caused by cosmic rays. Decrease in computing features size, decrease in power usage and shorting the micro-cycle period, enhances the influence of soft-errors. Self-stabilizing systems is designed to be started in an arbitrary, possibly corrupted state, due to, say, soft errors, and to converge to a desired behavior. Self-stabilization is defined by the state space of the components, and essentially is a well founded, clearly defined, form of the terms: self-healing, automatic-recovery, automatic-repair, and autonomic-computing. To implement a self-stabilizing system one needs to ensure that the micro-processor that executes the program is self-stabilizing. The self-stabilizing microprocessor copes with any combination of soft errors, converging to perform fetch-decode-execute in fault free periods. Still, it is important that the micro-processor will avoid convergence periods as possible, by masking the effect of soft errors immediately. In this work we present design schemes for self-stabilizing microprocessor, and a new technique for analyzing the effect of soft errors. Previous schemes for analyzing the effect of soft errors were based on simulations. In contrast, our scheme computes lower bound on the micro-processor reliability and enables the micro-processor designer to evaluate the reliability of the design, and to identify reliability bottlenecks.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=21144434324&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-540-24714-2_5
DO - 10.1007/978-3-540-24714-2_5
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:21144434324
SN - 3540212388
SN - 9783540212386
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 31
EP - 46
BT - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
A2 - Müller-Schloer, Christian
A2 - Ungerer, Theo
A2 - Bauer, Bernhard
PB - Springer Verlag
ER -