Random Additive Control Flow Error Detection

Jens Vankeirsbilck, Niels Penneman, Hans Hallez, Jeroen Boydens

Abstract: Today, embedded systems are being used in many (safety-critical) applications. However, due to their decreasing feature size and supply voltage, such systems are more susceptible to external disturbances such as electromagnetic interference. These external disturbances are able to introduce bit-flips inside the microcontroller’s hardware. In turn, these bit-flips may also corrupt the software. A possible software corruption is a control flow error. This paper proposes a new software-implemented control flow error detection technique. The advantage of our technique, called Random Additive Control Flow Error Detection, is a high detection ratio with a low execution time overhead. Most control flow errors are detected, while having a lower execution time overhead than the considered existing techniques.