Simulated fault injection: a methodology to evaluate fault tolerant microprocessor architectures

A simulation-based fault-injection methodology for validating fault-tolerant microprocessor architectures is described. The approach uses mixed-mode simulation (electrical/logic analysis), and injects transient errors in run-time to assess the resulting fault-impact. To exemplify the methodology, a fault-tolerant architecture which models the digital aspects of a dual-channel, real-time jet-engine controller is used. The level of effectiveness of the dual configuration with respect to single and multiple transients is measured. The results indicate 100% coverage of single transients. Approximately 12% of the multiple transients affect both channels; none result in controller failure since two additional levels of redundancy exist