An Approach for Detection of Low Level Faults in Modern Microprocessors Using a Real Time Simulator

AbstractThis project involves the real time simulation of hardware fault and analyzing the impact on software performance in a microprocessor system. Here analyzing the instruction level impact on the execution of low level faults in the control logic of a modern microprocessor. According to these results we can extract the instruction level error information and also compare the state of faulty microprocessor with golden results. For mission critical applications this technique is necessary to analyze the impact of low level errors and fault tolerance. The fault injection is done through a GUI. Here the test vehicle for study is Altera's Nios II processor on which spec2000 benchmark is used. Nios II processor handles system calls and other floating point instructions. Experimentation is done with memory faults, as well as with both stuck at fault and transient errors. Experimentation results demonstrate that the approach is fast, efficient, cost-effective solution