A new solution to on-line detection of Control Flow Errors

Transient faults can affect the behavior of electronic systems, and represent a major issue in many safety-critical applications. This paper focuses on Control Flow Errors (CFEs) and extends a previously proposed method, based on the usage of the debug interface existing in several processors/controllers. The new method achieves a good detection capability with very limited impact on the system development flow and reduced hardware cost: moreover, the proposed technique does not involve any change either in the processor hardware or in the application software, and works even if the processor uses caches. Experimental results are reported, showing both the advantages and the costs of the method.