CT: Well-Typed Trustworthy Computing in the Presence of Transient Faults

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David WalkerPrinceton University0627650Panel: 060970Well-typed trustworthy computing in the presence of transient faultsAbstractIn recent decades, microprocessor performance has been increasingexponentially, due in large part to smaller and faster transistorsenabled by improved fabrication technology. While such transistorsyield performance enhancements, their lower threshold voltages andtighter noise margins make them less reliable, rendering processorsthat use them more susceptible to transient faults caused by energeticparticles striking the chip. Such faults can corrupt computations,crash computers, and cause heavy economic damages. Indeed,Sun Microsystems, Cypress Semiconductor and Hewlett-Packardhave all recently acknowledged massive failures at client sitesdue to transient faults.This project addresses several basic scientific questions: How does onebuild software systems that operate on faulty hardware, yet provideironclad reliability guarantees? For what fault models can theseguarantees be provided? Can one prove that a given implementation doesindeed tolerate all faults described by the model? Driven in part bythe answers to these scientific questions, this project will produce atrustworthy, flexible and efficient computing platform that toleratestransient faults. The multidisciplinary project team will do this bydeveloping: (1) programming language-level reliability specifications soconsumers can dictate the level of reliability they need, (2)reliability-preserving compilation and optimization techniques toimprove the performance of reliable code but ensure correctness (3)automatic, machine-level verifiers so compiler-generated code can beproven reliable, (4) new software-modulated fault tolerance techniquesat the hardware/software boundary to implement the reliabilityspecifications, and finally (5) microarchitectural optimizations thatexplore trade-offs between reliability, performance, power, and cost.