Patent Abstract:
The invention relates to the design of highly reliable microprocessors and more specifically to the use of a dedicated state machine that periodically checks the validity of critical processor resources. In an embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus to detect errors in information stored in a processor resource includes an error detection component, which is configured to control the detection of errors in the information stored in the processor resource; and a comparison component coupled to the error detection component, which is configured to receive the information from the processor resource and inputs from the detection component. The comparison component is further configured to determine if the information is valid, and to output a signal to replace the information if the information if invalid.

Full Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    The invention relates to the design of highly reliable microprocessors and more specifically to the use of a dedicated state machine that periodically checks the validity of information stored in critical processor resources.  
         BACKGROUND  
         [0002]    To protect against soft errors, which may cause faulty system operations, modern microprocessors often use parity or Error Correcting Code (ECC) check bits to protect large memory structure such as caches, memory queues, and buffers. While parity and ECC check bits are effective means for combating soft errors, both are expensive in terms of the silicon area for implementation, timing impact, and power consumption. Another drawback to the use of parity or ECC check bits is that the consumed data must be explicitly read out from the memory structures before the parity of the data can be computed. However, not all critical resources in high performance microprocessors that must be protected have this property. In certain critical processor resources, the data can be consumed without being read out explicitly. For example, in a model specific register (MSR) that contains configuration data, the data are often consumed without explicitly being read out.  
           [0003]    As another example, Intel® Architecture 64-bit. (IA-64) processors often use a technique called pre-validated Region Identification (RID) and pre-validated protection key to speed up the address translation process. IA-64 processors are manufactured by Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif. In the prevalidation scheme,  
           [0004]    (1) the register index of the RID or protection key to be updated is used to disable all entries with a matching register index in the translation lookaside buffer (TLB), and  
           [0005]    (2) the new content of the region ID or protection key is then used to enable any matching entry in the TLB.  
           [0006]    Only the enabled entries participate during the address translation process. The disabled entries are not removed and can be later re-enabled. Effectively, pre-validation removes the need to compare the RID and protection key during the address translation process. In this way, the address translation processor may be sped up. A side-effect of prevalidation is to turn a frequently used critical resource into an infrequently used critical resource. If any soft error happens to the RID and/or the protection key in the TLB, the processor will operate incorrectly because the RID and/or the protection key may be corrupted.  
           [0007]    Therefore what is needed is an efficient apparatus and/or method to protect these infrequently used critical processor resources, such as, for example, the MSR and the pre-validated RIDs and protection keys in the TLB.  
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0008]    [0008]FIG. 1 is a high level logic block diagram illustrating an error detection apparatus being used to protect pre-validated region identifications (RIDs) in the translation look-aside buffer (TLB), in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0009]    [0009]FIG. 2 is a logic block diagram illustrating an error detection apparatus being used to protect model specific registers (MSRs), in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0010]    [0010]FIG. 3 is a detailed functional flow diagram of the operation for the error detection apparatus&#39; detailed in FIGS. 1 and 2, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0011]    In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a dedicated hardware error detection apparatus is used to periodically read out the critical resources and compute their parity or ECC bits. The parity and ECC bits may be shared within the same or across the critical resources. In the TLB pre-validated RIDs or protection keys case, because the RIDs and/or the data are updated relatively infrequently, this scheme provides good protection against soft errors. Similarly, applying this technique to MSRs that are accessed infrequently yields the similar good protection benefit. The advantage of this technique is low cost and no impact on the timing critical paths, allowing a higher operating processor frequency. In the conventional parity scheme, protecting 100 32-bit registers will require 100 parity bits (1 per register) and 100 sets of logic to generate and check the parity. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, in the proposed scheme only 1 parity bit and 1 set of logic are needed to generate and check the parity bit since the parity bit and the logic are shared among all the registers. In addition, the parity generation and check logic is much simpler since it is computed in a serial fashion. Another advantage is that other, arbitrarily complicated protection schemes, such as, for example, checksum and double correct/triple detect may be implemented to provide a more robust error protection (against multiple bit errors and block errors).  
         [0012]    In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, methods to protect the critical resources used in microprocessors are described herein. As a way of illustration, two hardware-based implementations in which an error detection state machine (EDSM), in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, is shown and described protecting a Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) and protecting a Control Register Access Bus (CRAB). However, while the illustrated embodiments are described in relation to a TLB and a CRAB as, generally, implemented in IA-64 processors, these implementations should not be taken to limit any alternative embodiments directed to additional processor resources or alternative processor architectures, which fall within the spirit and the broad scope of the appended claims.  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 1 is a high-level logic block diagram illustrating an error detection apparatus being used to protect pre-validated region identifications (RIDs) in the translation look-aside buffer (TLB), in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a simple 1-bit parity scheme is used by an error detection apparatus  100  to protect a pre-validated RID array  145  in a TLB  140 . The error detection apparatus  100  includes an error detection state machine (EDSM)  110 , a shift register  120 , an XOR gate  125  coupled to the shift register  120  and a feedback channel  131 , a result latch  130  coupled to the XOR gate  125  and the EDSM  110 , and an XOR gate  135  coupled to the result latch  130  and the EDSM  110 . The TLB  140  includes the RID array  145 , a RID parity bit array  146 , a protection key register array  150 , a protection key register parity bit array  151 , an enable/disable bit  155 , a virtual address  160  and a physical address  165 . In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the EDSM  110  periodically reads out the content of an entry (a row) in the RID array  145 , which includes the parity bit for the row, stores the read-out content in the shift register  120  and computes the parity bit for the read-out entry in a serial fashion by the XOR gate  125 . In, general, at the end of the parity computation step as indicated by counter  160 , the computed parity bit in the result latch  130  will be stored in the parity and valid bits register  150  if the valid bit is not set. If the valid bit in the parity and valid bits register  150  is set, the parity of the result latch  130  will be compared with the parity bit in the parity and valid bits register  150 . A mismatch results in a Machine Check Abort (MCA) signal being out. This MCA will cause the processor to transfer execution control to the firmware error handler to take proper error recovery action. The EDSM  110  uses the existing read port into the region ID or protection key arrays. When computing the parity bit, the content of the RID array  145  is read into the shift register  120 . The content of the shift register  120  is then shifted out 1 bit at a time and the output of the shift register  120  is fed into the XOR gate  125 . At the end of the shift operation as indicated by the EDSM  110 , the polarity of the result latch  130 , which indicates whether the entry will have a parity error, is output to the XOR gate  135  and fed back to the XOR gate  125 . The end-of-shift signal that is output from the EDSM  110  is also received by the XOR gate  135 .  
         [0014]    In FIG. 1, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the EDSM  110  includes a timer, a next pointer  114  and a move to RID indicator  116 . The timer  112  is fired periodically to initiate a read of a row from the RID array  145  into the shift register  120 . The counter  160  counts the number of shifts needed to compute the proper parity bit. If the valid bit is not set, then the parity and valid bits register  150  stores the result of the parity bit computation; otherwise, the parity and valid bits register  50  stores the parity bit used to compare with the parity bit in the result latch  130 . The EDSM  110  also remembers which entry to read out via the next pointer  114  logic, which stores a pointer that is used to determine which row in the RID array  145  is to be read-out, for example, the pointer can be used to indicate the actual row to be read-out or the last row that was read out. The move to RID  116  logic monitors any incoming move to RID operation and will also invalidate the valid bit of the parity and valid bits register  150 . The EDSM  110  will not do a read if there is an incoming RID operation. Note that, in other embodiments of the present invention, the XOR gate  125  can be replaced by other logic to implement other arbitrary and more complicated protection schemes, such as, for example, checksumming the entire contents of the RID array  145 . In such embodiments, for example, a pre-validated checksum value can be associated with the RID array  145 , either in place of or in conjunction with the parity bit array  146 , the entire contents of the RID array  145  can be read out, and a new checksum value can be computed by the checksum logic.  
         [0015]    In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the EDSM periodically reads out the contents of the entire RID array, which includes at least one parity bit, stores the read-out content in the shift register  120  and computes the parity bit for the read-out contents in the serial fashion described above for a single RID entry.  
         [0016]    In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the error detection apparatus  100  is coupled to the protection key register array  150  and operates to protect the protection key register array  150  in a manner similar to that described above for the RID  145 .  
         [0017]    In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a separate error detection apparatus  100  can be coupled to each of the RID  145  and the protection key register array  150  and each error detection apparatus  110  operates as described above in the discussion of FIG. 1.  
         [0018]    The MSRs in a processor, generally, contain critical data used by the processor. For this reason, the MSR bits must be protected adequately to reduce the chance of silent data corruption.  
         [0019]    As a result, there is a need to protect certain MSRs and, if the number of MSRs to be protected is small, then a conventional ECC scheme may be sufficient. However, if the number of the MSRs is large, protecting the MSR bits using full ECC or parity quickly becomes expensive.  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 2 is a logic block diagram illustrating an error detection apparatus being used to protect MSRs, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 2, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a simple 1-bit parity scheme is used, such as, for example, the scheme used by and described above for the error detection apparatus  100  of FIG. 1. In FIG. 2, an MSR error detection apparatus  200  uses the 1-bit parity scheme to protect the MSRs  220   a - 220   f  on the Control Register Access Bus (CRAB)  215 . The MSR error detection apparatus  200  is similar to the error detection apparatus  100  of FIG. 1 and includes an MSR error detection state machine (MSR EDSM)  210 , the shift register  120 , the XOR gate  125  coupled to the shift register  120  and the feedback channel  131 , a result latch  130  coupled to the XOR gate  125  and the MSR EDSM  210 , and an XOR gate  135  coupled to the result latch  130  and the MSR EDSM  210 .  
         [0021]    In FIG. 2, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the CRAB  215  is coupled to a CRAB bus read logic  225 , which controls access to and from the CRAB. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the MSR EDSM  210  periodically reads out the content of one of the MSRs with a parity bit or checksum and computes a new parity bit or checksum for the read-out entry. The computed parity bit or checksum is compared with the read-in parity bit or checksum and any mismatch results in an MCA signal being output. The MCA causes the processor error recovery firmware to be activated and to take the necessary error correction action.  
         [0022]    In FIG. 2, the MSR EDSM  210  uses an existing read port into the CRAB bus read logic  225  to request the next entry to be read out. When computing the parity bit, the content of an MSR is read into the shift register  120 . The content of the shift register  120  is then shifted out 1 bit at a time and the output of the shift register  120  is fed into the XOR gate  125 . Specifically, on the final shift, as indicated by the counter  160 , the parity bit in the result latch  130  will be stored into the parity and valid bits register  150  if the valid bit is not set. If the valid bit is set, the computed parity bit will be compared with that in the parity and valid bits register  150 . At the end of the shift operation as indicated by the MSR EDSM  210 , the polarity of the result latch  130 , which indicates whether the entry will have a parity error, is output to the XOR gate  135  and fed back to the XOR gate  125 . The end-of-shift signal that is output from the MSR EDSM  210  is also received by the XOR gate  135 .  
         [0023]    In FIG. 2, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the MSR EDSM  210  includes a timer  112 , a next pointer  114  and a move to MSR indicator  216 . The MSR EDSM  210 , in FIG. 2, operates in the same manner as the EDSM  110  of FIG. 1. The timer  112  is fired periodically to initiate a read of an MSR  220   a - 220   f  into the shift register  120  to check if the read-out MSR is still valid. The MSR EDSM  210  also remembers which entry to read out via the next pointer logic  114 , which stores a pointer that is used to determine which of the MSRs  220   a - 220   f  is to be read-out, for example, the pointer can indicate the actual row to be read-out or the last row that was read out. The move to MSR  216  logic monitors any incoming move to MSR operation. The MSR EDSM  210  will not do a read if there is an incoming MSR operation. Note that the XOR gate  125  can be replaced by other logic to implement other arbitrary and more complicated protection schemes such as, for example, checksumming the entire content of the MSR array, which may be stored in a separate checksum component  230 .  
         [0024]    [0024]FIG. 3 is a detailed functional flow diagram of the operation for the error detection apparatus&#39; detailed in FIGS. 1 and 2, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 3, in block  310 , depending on what the EDSM is protecting, the contents of a row in the RID  145  and the associated parity bit from parity bit column  146  or one of the MSRs are periodically read out and, then, in block  320 , the contents are stored in the shift register  120 . In block  330 , a parity bit or checksum for the contents stored in the shift register is calculated. This calculation is accomplished by shifting out the contents of the shift register  120  1 bit at a time and feeding each shifted-out bit into the XOR gate  125  along with a bit signal on feedback line  131 . In block  340 , if the valid bit is not set, then the parity and valid bits register  150  stores the result of the parity bit computation; otherwise, the parity and valid bits register  150  stores the parity bit that is to be used to compare with the computed parity bit in the result latch  130 . If the valid bit is set, then, the computed parity bit is compared to the stored parity bit in the parity and valid bits register  150 , to determine if they are equal, which would indicate that the contents in the RID  145  or MSR are valid. The XOR gate  125  outputs a polarity as a result of this comparison of bits and sends the polarity to the result latch. If the stored and computed parity bit or checksum in the XOR gate  125  then the polarity goes and the associated parity bit low and, if the stored and output values do not match, then the polarity goes high. In block  350 , if the stored and output values do not match, then a machine check abort (MCA) signal is output. The MCA causes the processor error recovery firmware to be activated and to take the necessary error correction action. Outputting the MCA is performed by the XOR gate  135  when the polarity of only one of either the stored parity bit received from the parity and valid bits register  150  and the final output from the result latch are high. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, when the processor is reset, the contents of some of the MSRs  220   a - 220   f  may not be valid and the processor firmware is responsible for initializing the MSRs  220   a - 220   f . Generally, after the MSRs are initialized, the processor firmware computes the effective parity and then writes it into the parity and valid bits register  150  inside the MSR EDSM  210  and then starts the MSR EDSM  210 . The MSR EDSM  210  will only compare the computed parity bit (or checksum) when the valid bit is set. The values in the MSRs  220   a - 220   f  may also be changed. In this case, PAL disables the MSRs  220   a - 220   f  and then updates the MSR. The parity bit or checksum is then re-computed and updated in the MSR EDSM  210 .  
         [0025]    In another embodiment of the present invention, the error detection apparatus  200  is coupled to the CRAB  215 , which is coupled to at least one other CRAB and operates to protect the protection key register array  150  in a manner similar to that described above for the RID  145 .  
         [0026]    In another embodiment of the present invention, multiple error detection apparatus  200  are coupled to the CRAB  215  and operate to protect the CRAB  215  in a manner similar to that described above for the single error detection apparatus  200  coupled to the CRAB  215 .  
         [0027]    In another embodiment of the present invention, multiple error detection apparatus  200  are coupled to the CRAB  215 , which is coupled to at least one other CRAB and operates to protect the protection key register array  150  in a manner similar to that described above for the RID  145 .  
         [0028]    In accordance with an embodiment the present invention, a computer system to perform high-speed functional testing of integrated circuits includes a processor, a memory coupled to the processor, and an error detection apparatus coupled to the memory. The error detection apparatus operates to protect the memory by periodically checking the validity of pre-validated data in the memory.  
         [0029]    In accordance with an embodiment the present invention, a multi-processor computer system for performing high-speed functional testing includes a first processor, a second processor, a memory coupled to the first and second processors, and an error detection apparatus coupled to the memory. The error detection apparatus operates to protect the memory by periodically checking the validity of the pre-validated data in the memory.  
         [0030]    In accordance with an embodiment the present invention, a multi-processor computer system for performing high-speed functional testing includes a first processor, a second processor, a first memory coupled to the first processor, a second memory coupled to the second processor, a first error detection apparatus coupled to the first memory and a second error detection apparatus coupled to the second memory. The error detection apparatus operates to protect the memory by periodically checking the validity of pre-validated data in the memory.  
         [0031]    In accordance with an embodiment the present invention, an apparatus to detect errors in information stored in a processor resource includes an error detection component, the error detection component being configured to control the detection of errors in the information stored in the processor resource; and a comparison component coupled to the error detection component, the comparison component being configured to receive the information from the processor resource, to determine if the information is valid, and to output a signal to indicate an error condition if the information is invalid.  
         [0032]    It should, of course, be understood that while the present invention has been described mainly in terms of single- and multi-processor-based personal computer systems, those skilled in the art will recognize that the principles of the invention may be used advantageously with alternative embodiments involving other integrated processor chips, memory structures, processor resources, operating systems and computer systems. Accordingly, all such implementations which fall within the spirit and the broad scope of the appended claims will be embraced by the principles of the present invention.

Technology Classification (CPC): 6