Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Software-Based Technique Under SEEs Using FPGA-Based Fault Injection Approach

Nowadays, microprocessor-based system’s robustness under Single Event Effects (SEEs) represents a very important concern. A widely adopted solution to make a microprocessor-based system robust consists in modifying the application code by adding redundancy and fault tolerance capabilities. In this context, the main idea behind this paper is to evaluate a software-based technique named Optimized Embedded Signature Monitoring (OESM) using an FPGA-based fault injection technique, which is able to inject a high number of Single Event Upsets (SEUs) and Single Event Transients (SETs) in a short period of time. The obtained results demonstrated not only the increase of system’s robustness level, but also point out the remaining weak areas in the microprocessor-based system with respect to both types of SEEs.