CLASH - Cross-Layer Accelerated Self-Healing: Circadian Rythms for Resilient Electronic Systems

未来电子系统面临的一个巨大挑战是如何应对工艺、电压、温度和老化的变化。如果不加以控制，这些变化需要不可接受的设计裕度，可能会导致暂时性和永久性故障，并显著降低系统的可靠性和弹性。该项目将考虑电子系统定期深度恢复的潜在变革性概念，类似于生物系统在睡眠期间的恢复。到目前为止，睡眠对于电子学来说只意味着一段不活动的时间；这项提议探索了睡眠成为电子产品和生物学中必不可少的活跃恢复期的想法。这样的深度年轻化方案将需要跨层优化，以平衡各种权衡。前景看好的初步实验结果显示了拟议活动的潜在好处。这项拟议的研究如果成功，可能会对半导体行业和整个社会产生深远的影响，因为电子系统的设计、使用和操作方式。由于定期返老还童，这样的系统可以优化为运行更快、消耗更少的电力、更小的面积、更低的成本，从而总体上提供更高的性价比。Practice Investigator计划为专用集成电路或片上系统开发一本教科书，利用iBook格式实现的交互图形，并在现有在线讲座的帮助下“翻转”课堂。

A great challenge for future electronic systems is coping with process, voltage, temperature and aging variations. If left unchecked these variations require unacceptable design margins, can lead to transient and permanent faults, and significantly degrade the system reliability and resilience. This project is to consider the potentially transformative concept of regular periodic deep rejuvenation for electronic systems akin to the recovery during sleep for biological systems. Until now sleep for electronics just meant a period of inactivity; this proposal explores the idea of sleep becoming an active recovery period as essential for electronics as it is in biology. Such deep rejuvenation schemes will require cross-layer optimizations in order to balance the various tradeoffs. Promising preliminary experimental results show the potential benefits of the proposed activities. The proposed research, if successful, could have a deep impact on the semiconductor industry, and society as a whole, by the way electronic systems are designed, used and operated. Due to the periodic rejuvenation such systems could be optimized to run faster, consume less power, have less area, cost less, and thus overall provide more value per dollar. The Principle Investigator plans to develop a textbook for application-specific integrated circuits or systems-on-chips that would take advantage of the interactive graphics made possible by the iBook format, and to "flip" the classroom with the help of the available on-line lectures.