Title :
Control signal protection: a new challenge for high performance processors
Author :
Pflanz, M. ; Vierhaus, H.T.
Author_Institution :
Processor Dev. Dept., IBM Deutschland Entwicklung GmbH, Boeblingen, Germany
Abstract :
This paper deals with the protection of control signals - the detection and fast correction of soft errors in the global control logic, control signal lines or control signal pipelines of microprocessors. As detection techniques, we compare different duplication and prediction schemes for control logic. We discuss several error correction techniques with respect to their suitability for the correction of control signal errors in high-performance processor architectures. We investigated different rollback methods which work with the re-execution of data path operations with a variable rollback distances or a selective control signal repetition. A complete solution for a distributed control signal observation and recovery (protection) scheme with regards to architectural conditions of high-performance processors is proposed.
Keywords :
error correction; error detection; logic circuits; logic design; microcontrollers; microprocessor chips; control signal error; control signal line; control signal pipelines; control signal protection; control signal repetition; error correction; error detection; global control logic; microprocessor; processor architectures; protection scheme; recovery scheme; rollback distance; rollback method; Protection; Signal processing; Testing;
Conference_Titel :
On-Line Testing Symposium, 2003. IOLTS 2003. 9th IEEE
Print_ISBN :
0-7695-1968-7
DOI :
10.1109/OLT.2003.1214394
