A comparison of simulation based and scan chain implemented fault injection

This paper compares two fault injection techniques: scan chain implemented fault injection (SCIFI), i.e. fault injection in a physical system using built in test logic, and fault injection in a VHDL software simulation model of a system. The fault injections were used to evaluate the error detection mechanisms included in the Thor RISC microprocessor, developed by Saab Ericsson Space AB. The Thor microprocessor uses several advanced error detection mechanisms including control flow checking, stack range checking and variable constraint checking. A newly developed tool called FIMB UL (Fault Injection and Monitoring using BUilt in Logic), which uses the Test Access Port (TAP) of the Thor CPU to do fault injection, is presented. The simulations were carried out using the MEFISTO-C tool and a highly detailed VHDL model of the Thor processor. The results show that the larger fault set available in the simulations caused only minor differences in the error detection distribution compared to SCIFI and that the overall error coverage was lower using SCIFI (90-94% vs. 94-96% using simulation based fault injection).