What is a soft fault?

What is a soft fault?

If the page is loaded in memory at the time the fault is generated, but is not marked in the memory management unit as being loaded in memory, then it is called a minor or soft page fault. This could happen if the memory is shared by different programs and the page is already brought into memory for other programs.

What causes soft memory errors?

A soft error is caused mainly by radiation rays. When particles included in the radiation rays clash with a semiconductor, charged particles are generated within the semiconductor. The charged particles distort the data contained in the memory cells to generate a soft error.

What is soft error and hard error?

In this context hard failures are errors that occur through process defects and/or circuit bugs – hard failures are repeatable with the correct sequence of actions within the microcontroller. Soft errors occur through no failure of the circuit or defect but due to an external source that causes the data to change.

What are soft errors in VLSI?

A soft error is an issue that causes a temporary condition in RAM that alters stored data in an unintended way. Errors that change data stored in RAM are either soft errors or hard errors, which result from a hardware failure. Soft errors can be further divided into chip-level errors and system-level errors.

What causes page fault?

A page fault occurs when a program attempts to access a block of memory that is not stored in the physical memory, or RAM. However, an invalid page fault may cause a program to hang or crash. This type of page fault may occur when a program tries to access a memory address that does not exist.

What is soft error mitigation?

Soft Error Mitigation (SEM) IP cores perform SEU detection, correction, and classification for configuration memory. For SEU correction, the IP cores perform the necessary operations to locate and correct errors.

How many types of errors are in semiconductor memory?

The construction of four classes of error-correcting codes appropriate for semiconductor memory designs is described, and for each class of codes the number of check bits required for commonly used data lengths is provided.

How often do soft errors occur?

Soft Errors in Electronic Memory – A White Paper – A good summary paper with many references – Tezzaron January 2004. Concludes that 1000–5000 FIT per Mbit (0.2–1 error per day per Gbyte) is a typical DRAM soft error rate.

What is soft page fault?

Page faults are generated when an application tries to use memory that is part of its working set, but can’t find it. Hard page faults occur when the page is found in the page file on the hard disk. Soft page faults happen when the page is found somewhere else in memory.

How can soft page faults be reduced?

A page fault (sometimes called #PF or PF) is a type of interrupt, called trap, raised by the hardware when a running program accesses a memory page that is mapped into the virtual address space, but not loaded in physical memory. So to reduce page faults, install more memory.

How do you handle page faults?

5.4. 3.1. Handling of a Page Fault

  1. Check the location of the referenced page in the PMT.
  2. If a page fault occured, call on the operating system to fix it.
  3. Using the frame replacement algorithm, find the frame location.
  4. Read the data from disk to memory.
  5. Update the page map table for the process.

What causes a soft error in a semiconductor?

Soft errors are caused by a charged particle striking a se miconductor memory or a memory-type element. Specifically, the charge (electron-hole pairs) generated by the interaction of an energetic charged particle with the semiconductor. atoms corrupts the stored information in the memory cell.

When did the soft error in logic become known?

Since a logic circuit contains many nodes that may be struck, and each node may be of unique capacitance and distance from output, Q crit is typically characterized on a per-node basis. Soft errors became widely known with the introduction of dynamic RAM in the 1970s.

What’s the difference between firm and soft errors?

• Although the underlying causes are the same, soft errors are transient errors in memories; firm errors are non-tran-. sient errors in SRAM based programmable logic devices. Un like soft errors, firm errors remain until they are. detected and corrected.

What does soft error mean in Computer Science?

A soft error is also a signal or datum which is wrong, but is not assumed to imply such a mistake or breakage. After observing a soft error, there is no implication that the system is any less reliable than before. In the spacecraft industry this kind of error is called a single event upset.