Architecture Design for Soft Errors

Preface

As kids many of us were fascinated by black holes and solar flares in deep space. Little did we know that particles from deep space could affect computing systems on the earth, causing blue screens and incorrect bank balances. Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology has shrunk to a point where radiation from deep space and packaging materials has started causing such malfunction at an increasing rate. These radiation-induced errors are termed “soft” since the state of one or more bits in a silicon chip could flip temporarily without damaging the hardware. As there are no appropriate shielding materials to protect against cosmic rays, the design community is striving to find process, circuit, architectural, and software ...