An Experimental Framework for Implementing and Evaluating Concurrent Error Detection and Recovery Techniques

This paper presents m:~ experimental framew()rk consisting of lhree software tools ti)r illlplell/2nlillg, characterizing, and evaluating concurrent error detection and recovery techniques for general-purpose processors. The first tool analyzes compiled assembly programs (currently MIPS R2{I0{)/R300()), and can fom~ a nulnber of code transformations, including the embedding of instructions fur prt)liling and inlegrated monitoring for both error detection and recovery. The sec(md tool facilitates error injection expemnents. It can inject permanent or transient faults, manage the execution of the corrupted code, record the error handling behavior, and perlbrm repealed experiments. The third tool analyzes the ~cc~)rdcd cxpc~imental data, classifies the error types and determines the effectiveness of lhe techniques. This framework has been implemented and initially applied to the analysis of intrinsic error delection mechanisms in contemporary pipelined processors, and the detection of and recovery from control Ilow errors via signature monitoring.