Silent Data Corruption Errors in VLSI Circuits: Implications, Challenges, and Opportunities
Rama Govindaraju · 2024
VLSI chips are the foundation of our computing infrastructure, and we all rely on it to function reliably. Trust of our users and the entire industry is at stake. There is increasing evidence of reliability issues with modern VLSI chips. The defect rates are orders of magnitude higher than what has traditionally been cited. Amplifying this challenge is the point that an increasing number of these chips are silently corrupting the execution context (or SDC - silent data corruption and is inconsistent with the expectation of a failstop model). We will also discuss the challenges emerging from degradation/aging. This discussion will summarize some of the experiences at Google and a sketch of what Google has been doing to address this growing challenge. We will attempt to increase awareness of the growing challenge and also the many opportunities for research to address this problem. The goal will be to make louder the call to action that Google has been championing for the last 5 years to enable an end-to-end solution that addresses this emerging and growing challenge for the entire computing industry. This is an industry wide problem and needs everyone to contribute to enable the solution space.