Real time fault injection using a modified debugging infrastructure

Abstract

Dependability is a critical factor in computer systems, requiring high quality validation & verification procedures in the development stage. At the same time, digital devices are getting smaller and access to their internal signals and registers is increasingly complex, requiring innovative debugging methodologies. To address this issue, most recent microprocessors include an on-chip debug (OCD) infrastructure to facilitate common debugging operations. This paper proposes an enhanced OCD infrastructure with the objective of supporting the verification of fault-tolerant mechanisms through fault injection campaigns. This upgraded On-Chip Debug and Fault Injection (OCD-FI) infrastructure provides an efficient fault injection mechanism with improved capabilities and dynamic behavior. Preliminary results show that this solution provides flexibility in terms of fault triggering and allows high speed real-time fault injection in memory elements.