An efficient vulnerability-driven method for hardening a program against soft-error using genetic algorithm. (November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Arasteh, Bahman; Bouyer, Asgarali; Pirahesh, Sajjad
• Is Part Of: Computers & electrical engineering. Volume 48(2015)
• Page Start: 25
• Page End: 43
• Publication Date: 2015-11
• Subjects: Soft-error -- Vulnerable blocks -- Genetic algorithm -- Detection coverage -- Performance overhead -- Fault injection; Computer engineering -- Periodicals; Electrical engineering -- Periodicals; Electrical engineering -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Ordinateurs -- Conception et construction -- Périodiques; Électrotechnique -- Périodiques; Électrotechnique -- Informatique -- Périodiques; Computer engineering; Electrical engineering; Electrical engineering -- Data processing; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 621.302854
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compeleceng.2015.09.020
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0045-7906

Abstract

Abstract: Soft-errors are one of the major causes of software failures. Restricted reliability-improvement and undesirable performance-overhead are the main shortcomings of the state-of-the-art software-based methods to detect and recover soft-errors in a program. One of the main questions in this area of study is that which sections of the program, as the vulnerable sections, need to be duplicated against soft-errors? We propose a software-based method to tolerate soft-errors, as selective-replication, which precisely identifies and hardens the most vulnerable blocks of a program. Using the genetic algorithm (GA), the proposed method takes the dynamic behavior of the programs into consideration to identify the most vulnerable blocks. The results of fault-injection experiments show that, with about 30% duplication and about 24% performance-overhead, the proposed method leads to 82% error-detection coverage. Furthermore, the proposed method can be used to improve the efficiency of the statistical fault injection (SFI) methods which are used to evaluate the error coverage of a technique or reliability of a program; the injection space in a program is reduced about 30% by avoiding the fault injection in the derating-blocks which were identified by the proposed method.