Transient Error Detection in Embedded Systems Using Reconfigurable Components

In this paper, a hardware control flow checking technique is presented and evaluated. This technique uses re configurable of the shelf FPGA in order to concurrently check the execution flow of the target micro processor. The technique assigns signatures to the main program in the compile time and verifies the signatures using a FPGA as a watchdog processor to detect possible violation caused by the transient faults. The main characteristic of this technique is its ability to be applied to any kind of processor architecture and platforms. The low imposed hardware and performance overhead by this technique makes it suitable for those applications in which cost is a major concern, such as industrial applications. The proposed technique is experimentally evaluated on an 8051 microcontroller using software implemented fault injection (SWIFI). The results show that this technique detects about 90% of the injected control flow errors. The watchdog processor occupied 26% of an Altera Max-7000 FPGA chip logic cells. The performance overhead varies between 42% and 82% depending on the workload used.