• DOI:10.1109/TEST.2010.5699215
• Corpus ID: 7909084

QED: Quick Error Detection tests for effective post-silicon validation

@article{Hong2010QEDQE,
  title={QED: Quick Error Detection tests for effective post-silicon validation},
  author={Ted Hong and Yanjing Li and Sung-Boem Park and Diana Mui and David C. Lin and Ziyad Abdel Kaleq and Nagib Hakim and Helia Naeimi and Donald S. Gardner and Subhasish Mitra},
  journal={2010 IEEE International Test Conference},
  year={2010},
  pages={1-10}
}

• Ted Hong, Yanjing Li, +7 authors S. Mitra
• Published 1 November 2010
• Computer Science
• 2010 IEEE International Test Conference

Long error detection latency, the time elapsed between the occurrence of an error caused by a bug and its manifestation as a system-level failure, is a major challenge in post-silicon validation of robust systems. In this paper, we present a new technique called Quick Error Detection (QED), which transforms existing post-silicon validation tests into new validation tests that significantly reduce error detection latency. QED transformations allow flexible tradeoffs between error detection latency, coverage, and complexity, and can be implemented in software with little or no hardware changes. Results obtained from hardware experiments on quad-core Intel® Core™ i7 hardware platforms and from simulations on a multi-core MIPS processor design demonstrate that: 1. QED significantly improves error detection latencies by six orders of magnitude, i.e., from billions of cycles to a few thousand cycles or less. 2. QED transformations do not degrade the coverage of validation tests as estimated empirically by measuring the maximum operating frequencies over a wide range of operating voltage points. 3. QED tests improve coverage by detecting errors that escape the original non-QED tests.