Using Bulk Built-In Current Sensors and recomputing techniques to mitigate transient faults in microprocessors

Abstract

This work presents the application of a recomputing-based correction technique to mitigate radiation effects on integrated processors. The recomputing process is associated to Bulk Built-In Current Sensors (BICS) capable of detecting variations in the bulk current due to a particle strike in the circuit silicon area. An 8051 microprocessor is considered as case study. This work focuses on the mitigation of Single Event Transient (SET) faults affecting the execution of the microcontroller instructions. VHDL descriptions of the microcontroller and of the bulk-BICS are simulated and results show that recomputing the instruction, when the BICS indicates a particle strike, is an efficient way to prevent processing errors. The resulting SET-resistant microcontroller presents low area and performance overheads.