• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.443-448
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• 2014

Soft errors in memory devices that caused by radiation are the main threat from a reliability point of view. This threat can be commonly overcome with the combination of SEC (Single-Error Correction) codes and scrubbing technique. The interleaving architecture can give memory devices the ability of tolerating these soft errors, especially against multiple-bit soft errors. And the interleaving distance plays a key role in building the tolerance against multiple-bit soft errors. This paper proposes a reliability model of an interleaved memory device which suffers from multiple-bit soft errors and are protected by a combination of SEC code and scrubbing. The proposed model shows how the interleaving distance works to improve the reliability and can be used to make a decision in determining optimal scrubbing technique to meet the demands in reliability.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.701-704
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• 2011

The reliability of a computer system largely depends on that of its memory systems, which are vulnerable to soft errors. Soft errors can be coped with a combination of an Error Detection & Correction circuit and scrubbing operation. Smaller geometries and lower voltage of advanced memories makes them more prone to suffer multibit soft errors. A memory structure against multibit soft errors and a suitable scrubbing scheme for it were proposed. This paper introduces a key issue for the scrubbing of the memories with protection against multibit soft errors and the result of the performance analysis from a reliability point of view.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2016.10a
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• pp.655-658
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• 2016

Xilinx 7-Series FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Array)s mainly used for the implementation of high-performance digital circuit have SRAM-type configuration memory and can malfunction when soft errors occur in their configuration memory. SEM(Soft Error Mitigation Controller) offered by Xilinx helps users mitigate the influence of soft errors in configuration memory. When soft errors occur, SEM Controller can recover the state of FPGA through partial reconfiguration if the soft errors are correctable by ECC(Error Correction Code) and CRC(Cyclic Redundancy Code). This paper presents the availability analysis of Xilinx 7-Series FPGAs against soft errors under the protection of the SEM Controller. Availability functions are derived and compared according to the correction capability of the SEM Controller. The result may help to estimate the reliability of SRAM-based FPGA running in an environment where soft errors may occur.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1101-1105
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• 2011

Radiation particles can introduce temporary errors in memory systems. To protect against these errors, so-called soft errors, error detection and correcting codes are used. In addition, scrubbing is applied which is a fundamental technique to avoid the accumulation of soft errors. This paper introduces an optimal scrubbing scheme, which is suitable for a system with auto error detection and correction logic. An auto error detection and correction logic can correct soft errors without CPU's writing operation. The proposed scrubbing scheme leads to maximum reliability by considering both allowable scrubbing load and the periodic accesses to memory by the tasks running in the system.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.601-606
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• 2017

SRAM-based FPGAs mainly used to develop and implement high-performance circuits have SRAM-type configuration memory. Soft errors in memory devices are the main threat from a reliability point of view. Soft errors occurring in the configuration memory of FPGAs cause FPGAs to malfunction. SEM(Soft Error Mitigation) Controllers offered by Xilinx can mitigate the influence of soft errors in configuration memory. SEM Controllers use ECC(Error Correction Code) and CRC(Cyclic Redundancy Code) which are placed around the configuration memory to detect and correct the errors. The correction is done through a partial reconfiguration process. This paper presents the availability analysis of SRAM-based FPGAs against soft errors under the protection of SEM Controllers. Availability functions were derived and compared according to the correction capability of SEM Controllers of several different families of FPGAs. The result may help select an SRAM-based FPGA part and estimate the availability of FPGAs running in an environment where soft errors occur.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.430-437
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• 2021

In this paper, we propose a robust face recognition method against soft errors with a deep convolutional generative adversarial network(DCGAN) based compensation method by a cross-layer approach. When soft-errors occur in block data of JPEG files, these blocks can be decoded inappropriately. In previous results, these blocks have been replaced using a mean face, thereby improving recognition ratio to a certain degree. This paper uses a DCGAN-based compensation approach to extend the previous results. When soft errors are detected in an embedded system layer using parity bit checkers, they are compensated in the application layer using compensated block data by a DCGAN-based compensation method. Regarding soft errors and block data loss in facial images, a DCGAN architecture is redesigned to compensate for the block data loss. Simulation results show that the proposed method effectively compensates for performance degradation due to soft errors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.677-680
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• 2011

Error detection and correcting codes are typically used to protect against soft errors. In addition, scrubbing is applied which is a fundamental technique to avoid the accumulation of soft errors. This paper introduces an optimal scrubbing scheme, which is suitable for a system with auto error detection and correction logic. An auto error detection and correction logic can correct soft errors without CPU's writing operation. The proposed scrubbing scheme leads to maximum reliability by considering both allowable scrubbing load and the periodic accesses to memory by the tasks running in the system.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.35 no.6B
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• pp.948-953
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• 2010

In this paper, we propose multi-bit soft error detection method which can use an instruction cache of superscalar CPU architecture. Proposed method is applied to high-speed static RAM for instruction cache. Using 1D parity and interleaving, it has less memory overhead and detects more multi-bit errors comparing with other methods. It only detects occurrence of soft errors in static RAM. Error correction is treated like a cache miss situation. When soft errors are occurred, it is detected by 1D parity. Instruction cache just fetch the words from lower-level memory to correct errors. This method can detect multi-bit errors in maximum 4$\times$4 window.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.168-176
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• 2015

Due to the reduction in device feature size, transient faults (soft errors) in logic circuits induced by radiations increase dramatically. Many researches have been done in modeling and analyzing the susceptibility of sequential circuit elements caused by soft errors. However, to the best knowledge of the authors, there is no work which has well considerated the feedback characteristics and the multiple clock cycles of sequential circuits. In this paper, we present a new method for evaluating the susceptibility of sequential circuit elements to soft errors. The proposed method uses four Error Propagation Probability Matrixs (EPPMs) to represent the error propagation probability of logic gates and flip-flops in current clock cycle. Based on the predefined matrix union operations, the susceptibility of circuit elements in multiple clock cycles can be evaluated. Experimental results on ISCAS'89 benchmark circuits show that our method is more accurate and efficient than previous methods.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.121-130
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• 2011

Recent research indicates that transient errors will increasingly become a critical concern in microprocessor design. As embedded processors are widely used in reliability-critical or noisy environments, it is necessary to develop cost-effective fault-tolerant techniques to protect processors against transient errors. The register file is one of the critical components that can significantly affect microprocessor system reliability, since registers are typically accessed very frequently, and transient errors in registers can be easily propagated to functional units or the memory system, leading to silent data error (SDC) or system crash. This paper focuses on investigating the impact of register file soft errors on system reliability and developing cost-effective techniques to improve the register file immunity to soft errors. This paper proposes the register vulnerability factor (RVF) concept to characterize the probability that register transient errors can escape the register file and thus potentially affect system reliability. We propose an approach to compute the RVF based on register access patterns. In this paper, we also propose two compiler-directed techniques and a hybrid approach to improve register file reliability cost-effectively by lowering the RVF value. Our experiments indicate that on average, RVF can be reduced to 9.1% and 9.5% by the hyperblock-based instruction re-scheduling and the reliability-oriented register assignment respectively, which can potentially lower the reliability cost significantly, without sacrificing the register value integrity.