Robust Duplication with Comparison Methods in Microcontrollers

Quinn, Heather Marie; Baker, Zachary Kent; Fairbanks, Thomas D.; Tripp, Justin Leonard; Duran Il, Melvin George

doi:10.1109/TNS.2016.2634781

Title: Robust Duplication with Comparison Methods in Microcontrollers

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Abstract

Commercial microprocessors could be useful computational platforms in space systems, as long as the risk is bound. Many spacecraft are computationally constrained because all of the computation is done on a single radiation-hardened microprocessor. It is possible that a commercial microprocessor could be used for configuration, monitoring and background tasks that are not mission critical. Most commercial microprocessors are affected by radiation, including single-event effects (SEEs) that could be destructive to the component or corrupt the data. Part screening can help designers avoid components with destructive failure modes, and mitigation can suppress data corruption. We have been experimenting with a method for masking radiation-induced faults through the software executing on the microprocessor. While triple-modular redundancy (TMR) techniques are very effective at masking faults in software, the increased amount of execution time to complete the computation is not desirable. Here in this article we present a technique for combining duplication with compare (DWC) with TMR that decreases observable errors by as much as 145 times with only a 2.35 time decrease in performance.

Authors:

^[1];

^[1]; Fairbanks, Thomas D. ^[1];

^[1]; Duran Il, Melvin George ^[1]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Publication Date:: Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2016

Research Org.:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation

OSTI Identifier:: 1345154

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-16-24797
Journal ID: ISSN 0018-9499; 1558-1578 (Electronic)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 64; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 0018-9499

Publisher:: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; soft errors; software; software fault diagnosis; software fault tolerance

Citation Formats


                    Quinn, Heather Marie, Baker, Zachary Kent, Fairbanks, Thomas D., Tripp, Justin Leonard, and Duran Il, Melvin George. Robust Duplication with Comparison Methods in Microcontrollers.  United States: N. p., 2016. 
Web.  doi:10.1109/TNS.2016.2634781.

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                    Quinn, Heather Marie, Baker, Zachary Kent, Fairbanks, Thomas D., Tripp, Justin Leonard, & Duran Il, Melvin George. Robust Duplication with Comparison Methods in Microcontrollers.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2016.2634781

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                    Quinn, Heather Marie, Baker, Zachary Kent, Fairbanks, Thomas D., Tripp, Justin Leonard, and Duran Il, Melvin George. Fri .  
"Robust Duplication with Comparison Methods in Microcontrollers".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2016.2634781.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1345154.

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@article{osti_1345154,

  title        = {Robust Duplication with Comparison Methods in Microcontrollers},

  author       = {Quinn, Heather Marie and Baker, Zachary Kent and Fairbanks, Thomas D. and Tripp, Justin Leonard and Duran Il, Melvin George},

  abstractNote = {Commercial microprocessors could be useful computational platforms in space systems, as long as the risk is bound. Many spacecraft are computationally constrained because all of the computation is done on a single radiation-hardened microprocessor. It is possible that a commercial microprocessor could be used for configuration, monitoring and background tasks that are not mission critical. Most commercial microprocessors are affected by radiation, including single-event effects (SEEs) that could be destructive to the component or corrupt the data. Part screening can help designers avoid components with destructive failure modes, and mitigation can suppress data corruption. We have been experimenting with a method for masking radiation-induced faults through the software executing on the microprocessor. While triple-modular redundancy (TMR) techniques are very effective at masking faults in software, the increased amount of execution time to complete the computation is not desirable. Here in this article we present a technique for combining duplication with compare (DWC) with TMR that decreases observable errors by as much as 145 times with only a 2.35 time decrease in performance.},

  doi          = {10.1109/TNS.2016.2634781},

  journal      = {IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science},

  number       = 1,

  volume       = 64,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2016},

  month        = {Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2016}

}

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