Fault tolerance assessment of PIC microcontroller based on fault injection

Abstract

In this paper the fault tolerance behavior of a PIC micro-controller has been concerned by fault injection method. This experiment is based on injection of 70 different transient faults in various points. The faults have been injected into a structural-level VHDL model. Repeating each experiment for 200 times, result in 14000 transient fault injections into model of this microcontroller. The experimental results have been compared in different aspects. Up to 50% of the injected faults cause system failure and also about 50% are recovered before changing into errors. Less than 1% of injected faults treat as latent errors. Program counter is distinguished as the most infected components after simulated comparisons. The failure rate of this part is near to 90%. Moreover, the controller and file register stand on the second and third status by the failure rates of 68% and 64%, respectively.