1 research outputs found
OpenSEA: Semi-Formal Methods for Soft Error Analysis
Alpha-particles and cosmic rays cause bit flips in chips. Protection circuits
ease the problem, but cost chip area and power, and so designers try hard to
optimize them. This leads to bugs: an undetected fault can bring
miscalculations, the checker that alarms about harmless faults incurs
performance penalty. Such bugs are hard to find: circuit simulation with tests
is inefficient since it enumerates the huge fault time-location space, and
formal methods do not scale since they explore the whole inputs. In this paper,
we use formal methods on designer's input tests, while keeping time-location
open. This idea is at the core of the tool OpenSEA. OpenSEA can (i) find
latches vulnerable to and protected against faults, (ii) find tests that
exhibit checker false alarms, (iii) use fixed and open inputs, and (iv) use
environment assumptions. Evaluation on a number of industrial designs shows
that OpenSEA produces valuable results