VirTherm-3D - Formalization of Multi-Agent System Management and Adaptive Modular Redundancy for Dependable 3D MPSoCs

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VirtTherm-3D is the continuation of the project with the same name in the SPP 1500 phases I and II. Whereas the first phase focused on basic thermal management on a 3D multi-core platform with I/O virtualization, the second phase generalized agent-based thermal system management and enabled any-to-any communication virtualization. The focus of this third phase is on a formalization of the agent system and on adaptive modular redundancy of the 3D platform from phases I and II. More specifically, we plan to formalize the agent system in order to be able to either give guarantees or probabilities of the agent system's thermal management behavior to ensure a reliable operation of the 3D multi-core system during its lifetime with respect to short and long term constraints. In particular, we are concerned about a well-balanced management sensitized to short-term thermal management decisions (i.e. seconds) and their impact on longer-term aging effects (i.e. months/years where aging plays a role) which will require formalizing the agent system. Thereby, it is a main challenge to provide a high level of predictability without sacrificing the scalability and flexibility of the agent-based system management. Furthermore, we introduce the new adaptive modular redundancy (AMR) concept as a means to further increase dependability. AMR follows a hybrid hardware/software multi-layer approach with minimal intrusiveness to implicitly replicate tasks through the agent system on the 3D multi-core platform. Thus, AMR allows emulating dual and triple modular redundancy protection through dynamic software task instantiation during runtime in compliance with the thermal, aging, power and resource related budgets of the system. A major research question will be to identify the right amount and locations to instantiate the generic checking units and coping with synchronization and task runtime variations. In summary, VirTherm-3D in its third phase builds upon the platform of the first two phases and further enhances multi-layer dependability coverage along with predictability in behavior necessary for deployment in real-world embedded systems.