Using NEXUS compliant debuggers for real time fault injection on microprocessors

  • Authors:
  • André Fidalgo;Manuel Gericota;Gustavo Alves;José Ferreira

  • Affiliations:
  • ISEP, Porto, PORTUGAL;ISEP, Porto, PORTUGAL;ISEP, Porto, PORTUGAL;FEUP, Porto, PORTUGAL

  • Venue:
  • SBCCI '06 Proceedings of the 19th annual symposium on Integrated circuits and systems design
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

As electronic devices get smaller and more complex, dependability assurance is becoming fundamental for many mission critical computer based systems. This paper presents a case study on the possibility of using the on-chip debug infrastructures present in most current microprocessors to execute real time fault injection campaigns. The proposed methodology is based on a debugger customized for fault injection and designed for maximum flexibility, and consists of injecting bit-flip type faults on memory elements without modifying or halting the target application. The debugger design is easily portable and applicable to different architectures, providing a flexible and efficient mechanism for verifying and validating fault tolerant components.