arXiv subjects

Jiri Kral

Publications and source records attributed to Jiri Kral.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Ageing Monitoring for Commercial Microcontrollers Based on Timing Windows

Microcontrollers are increasingly present in embedded deployments and dependable systems, for which malfunctions due to hardware ageing can have severe impact. The lack of deployable techniques for ageing monitoring on these devices has spread the application of guard bands to prevent timing errors due to degradation. Applying this static technique can limit performance and lead to sudden failures as devices age. In this paper, we follow a software-based self-testing approach to design monitoring of hardware degradation for microcontrollers. Deployable in the field, our technique leverages timing windows of variable lengths to determine the maximum operational frequency of the devices. We empirically validate the method on real hardware and find that it consistently detects temperature-induced degradations in maximum operating frequency of up to 13.79 % across devices for 60 {\deg}C temperature increase.

cs.AR↗

arXiv2024

Switching Frequency as FPGA Monitor: Studying Degradation and Ageing Prognosis at Large Scale

The growing deployment of unhardened embedded devices in critical systems demands the monitoring of hardware ageing as part of predictive maintenance. In this paper, we study degradation on a large deployment of 298 naturally aged FPGAs operating in the European XFEL particle accelerator. We base our statistical analyses on 280 days of in-field measurements and find a generalized and continuous degradation of the switching frequency across all devices with a median value of 0.064%. The large scale of this study allows us to localize areas of the deployed FPGAs that are highly impacted by degradation. Moreover, by training machine learning models on the collected data, we are able to forecast future trends of frequency degradation with horizons of 60 days and relative errors as little as 0.002% over an evaluation period of 100 days.

cs.AR↗

arXiv2024

Studying the Degradation of Propagation Delay on FPGAs at the European XFEL

An increasing number of unhardened commercial-off-the-shelf embedded devices are deployed under harsh operating conditions and in highly-dependable systems. Due to the mechanisms of hardware degradation that affect these devices, ageing detection and monitoring are crucial to prevent critical failures. In this paper, we empirically study the propagation delay of 298 naturally-aged FPGA devices that are deployed in the European XFEL particle accelerator. Based on in-field measurements, we find that operational devices show significantly slower switching frequencies than unused chips, and that increased gamma and neutron radiation doses correlate with increased hardware degradation. Furthermore, we demonstrate the feasibility of developing machine learning models that estimate the switching frequencies of the devices based on historical and environmental data.

cs.AR↗