Architecture Design for Soft Errors

Foreword

I am delighted to see this new book on architectural design for soft errors by Dr. Shubu Mukherjee. The metrics used by architects for processor and chipset design are changing to include reliability as a first-class consideration during design. Dr. Mukherjee brings his extensive first-hand knowledge of this field to make this book an enlightening source for understanding the cause of this change, interpreting its impact, and understanding the techniques that can be used to ameliorate the impact.

For decades, the principal metric used by microprocessor and chipset architects has been performance. As dictated by Moore’s law, the base technology has provided an exponentially increasing number of transistors. Architects have been constantly ...