| | |
Summary: To appear in the proceedings of The 31st International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA-04), June 2004.
The Case for Lifetime Reliability-Aware Microprocessors
Jayanth Srinivasan, Sarita V. Adve Pradip Bose, Jude A. Rivers
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Department of Computer Science Yorktown Heights,NYˇ srinivsn,sadve˘ @cs.uiuc.edu,
ˇ pbose,jarivers˘ @us.ibm.com
Abstract
Ensuring long processor lifetimes by limiting failures
due to wear-out related hard errors is a critical require-
ment for all microprocessor manufacturers. We observe
that continuous device scaling and increasing temperatures
are making lifetime reliability targets even harder to meet.
However, current methodologies for qualifying lifetime re-
liability are overly conservative since they assume worst-
case operating conditions. This paper makes the case that
the continued use of such methodologies will significantly
and unnecessarily constrain performance. Instead, lifetime
reliability awareness at the microarchitectural design stage
can mitigate this problem, by designing processors that dy-
|
