CacheFI: 一种片上缓存的体系架构级故障注入工具

与逻辑电路相比,SRAM存储单元更易受工艺偏差和老化磨损的影响,体系架构级的缓存容错技术被认为是应对永久位故障率较高时的有效手段,但片上缓存故障注入工具尚不多见,影响了对这些缓存容错机制的验证,测试和评估。因此,提出了CacheFI,它是一个基于Simics的缓存故障注入工具,采用了故障生成和注入分离的设计,故障生成是随机分布,模式和时序三个方面的结合,故障注入则考虑了故障可重现性和模块化的需要。在全系统模拟器Simics上,针对15个选自SPEC CPU2000的测试程序,通过CacheFI进行片上缓存故障注入,演示了对Buddy,MAEP等典型的体系架构级缓存容错机制的容错能力和性能的评估。

CacheFI: A Microarchitectural Fault Injection Tool for On-chip Caches

Compared with the logic, SRAM is more influenced by process variations and aging. Architectural solutions of on-chip cache fault tolerance are considered as an effective means for high persistent failure probabilities. However, there are little fault injection tools for on-chip caches. Consequently, current proposed microarchitectural mechanisms are short of comprehensive validation. Therefore, CacheFI is proposed. It is a fault injection tool based on the full-system simulator Simics. It employs the fault generation and injection separation mechanism design. Fault generation consists of stochastic distribution control, failure patterns and explosive timing. Fault injection is focused on the requirement of repeatability and modularity. According to the experiments based on Simics and 15 benchmarks from SPEC CPU2000, it evaluates typical microarchitectural fault mechanisms, such as Buddy, MAEP etc., by injecting cache faults with CacheFI.