Detection of upset induced execution errors in microprocessors

The authors discuss the types of errors in a radiation environment and propose fault models for instruction execution errors. A scheme is suggested for detecting execution errors through the online monitoring of the system. The theoretical estimate for the error coverage of the proposed scheme is about 85% of all single-bit errors in an instruction word. The exact error coverage will vary as it depends on the nature of program under execution on the microprocessor. At present the design of the watchdog processor hardware is in progress.<>