Autonomous Integrated Systems: Institut für Datentechnik und Kommunikationsnetze

Introduction

Caused by continously technology scaling in semiconductor cicuits reliability of modern microprocessors becomes more and more an important design issue. Manufacturing processes converging to physical limitations lead to increasing number of bugs during production of a chip.

Furthermore semiconductor structures smaller than 64 nm implicate transistors with less the 100 dopant atoms per channel. Such a small number of dopant atoms makes it impossible to produce transistors with totally deterministic behaviour. Instead random effects are ocurring, which lead to variations in threshold voltage or leakage.

In the scope of the AIS project several measures will be explored to counteract these kind of problems. Therefore the classical MpSoC design will be enhanced by an autonomous layer. This layer, which will be integrated directly on chip, contains elements responsible for detection and correction of errors resulting from the effects described above. Further on software techniques will be developed to analyze the timing behaviour of autonomous systems and to provide autonomous operating system functionality.

More detailled information about the AIS project can be found here.

Project Overview

The main research focus of the Institute of Computer and Network Engineering within the AIS project consists in studying the real time probabilities of autonomous systems. For this purpose we will enhance the performance analysis tool SymTA/S to take error occurence and error correction into account during system level timing analysis.

The major challenges within the project are:

Modelling the occurence of transient errors in microprocessors. In addition to the previously mentioned circuit timing errors so-called single event upsets (SEU) have to be considered. A SEU denotes a randomly occuring error caused by external electromagentic radiation.
Transformation of given error models into the compositional analysis model of SymTA/S. This step includes the transfer of the timing behaviour, which is used to describe an error model, to the SymTA/S approach based on abstract event models.
Sensitivity analysis to determine the consequences of error occurence and the sensitivity to changes of the error model, e.g. increased error frequencies caused by error bursts following to fluctuations of environmenetal radiation.

The results can finally be used to derive measures to optimze the system behaviour due to error occurence. For example, a marginal reduction of processor's clock frequency may result in a signifant reduction of error rates. In this case, the overall chip performance may be improved despite to lower clock frequencies.

People at IDA

Maurice Sebastian

Publications

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Maurice Sebastian, Rolf Ernst, "Reliability Analysis of Single Bus Communication with Real-Time Requirements" in Proc. of 15th IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC), (Shanghai, China), November 2009.
@inproceedings{Seb09:ReliaAnalySinglCommu, address = {Shanghai, China}, author = {Maurice Sebastian, Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Proc. of 15th IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC)}, month = nov, title = {{Reliability Analysis of Single Bus Communication with Real-Time Requirements}}, year = {2009} }
Volker Schöber, Oliver Bringmann, Andreas Herkersdorf, Walter Stechele, Norbert Wehn, Matthias May, Daniel Ziener, Abdelmajid Bouajila, Daniel Baldin, Johannes Zeppenfeld, Björn Sander, Jürgen Teich, Maurice Sebastian, Rolf Ernst and Dieter Treytnar, "AIS – Autonomous Integrated Systems", newsletter edacentrum, No. 04/09, pp. 5-13, Dezember 2009.
@article{Sch09:AISAutonIntegSyste, author = {Volker Schöber and Oliver Bringmann and Andreas Herkersdorf and Walter Stechele and Norbert Wehn and Matthias May and Daniel Ziener and Abdelmajid Bouajila and Daniel Baldin and Johannes Zeppenfeld and Björn Sander and Jürgen Teich and Maurice Sebastian and Rolf Ernst and Dieter Treytnar}, journal = {newsletter edacentrum}, month = dec, pages = {5-13}, title = {{AIS – Autonomous Integrated Systems}}, number = {04/09}, year = {2009} }
Maurice Sebastian, Rolf Ernst, "Reliability and Safety Guarantees in Modern MPSoCs with Real- Time Requirements" in 3rd edaWorkshop, (Dresden, Germany), Mai 2009.
@inproceedings{Seb09:ReliaSafetGuaraModer, address = {Dresden, Germany}, author = {Maurice Sebastian, Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {3rd edaWorkshop}, month = may, title = {{Reliability and Safety Guarantees in Modern MPSoCs with Real- Time Requirements}}, year = {2009} }
Maurice Sebastian, Rolf Ernst, "Modelling and Designing Reliable On-Chip-Communication Devices in MPSoCs with Real-Time Requirements" in Proc. of 14th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Techonologies and Factory Automation (ETFA), (Hamburg, Germany), September 2008.
@inproceedings{Seb08:ModelDesigReliaOnChi, address = {Hamburg, Germany}, author = {Maurice Sebastian, Rolf Ernst}, booktitle = {Proc. of 14th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Techonologies and Factory Automation (ETFA)}, month = sep, title = {{Modelling and Designing Reliable On-Chip-Communication Devices in MPSoCs with Real-Time Requirements}}, year = {2008} }
Walter Stechele, Oliver Bringmann, Rolf Ernst, Andreas Herkersdorf, Katharina Hojenski, Peter Janacik, Franz Rammig, Jürgen Teich, Norbert Wehn, Johannes Zeppenfeld, Daniel Ziener, "Concepts for Autonomic Integrated Systems" in 1st edaWorkshop, (Hannover, Germany), Juni 2007.
@inproceedings{Ste07:ConceAutonIntegSyste, address = {Hannover, Germany}, author = {Walter Stechele, Oliver Bringmann, Rolf Ernst, Andreas Herkersdorf, Katharina Hojenski, Peter Janacik, Franz Rammig, Jürgen Teich, Norbert Wehn, Johannes Zeppenfeld, Daniel Ziener}, booktitle = {1st edaWorkshop}, month = jun, title = {{Concepts for Autonomic Integrated Systems}}, year = {2007} }
Walter Stechele, ..., Rolf Ernst, ..., "Autonomic MPSoCs for Reliable Systems" in Zuverlässigkeit und Entwurf, 1. Fachtagung GI/GMM/ITG, (München), März 2007.
@inproceedings{Ste07:AutonMPSoCReliaSyste, address = {München}, author = {Walter Stechele, ..., Rolf Ernst, ...}, booktitle = {Zuverlässigkeit und Entwurf, 1. Fachtagung GI/GMM/ITG}, month = mar, title = {{Autonomic MPSoCs for Reliable Systems}}, year = {2007} }

Autonomous Integrated Systems

Introduction

Project Overview

People at IDA

Publications

Contact

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