Microcontrollers are increasingly present in embedded deployments and dependable applications, 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 °C temperature increase.

翻译：微控制器在嵌入式部署和可靠性要求高的应用中日益普及，硬件老化导致的故障可能产生严重影响。由于缺乏可部署的老化监测技术，目前普遍采用防护带技术来预防因性能退化引发的时序错误。然而，这种静态技术会限制系统性能，并在设备老化时导致突发故障。本文采用基于软件的自测试方法，设计了针对微控制器的硬件退化监测方案。该技术可在现场部署，通过利用可变长度的时序窗口来确定设备的最大工作频率。我们在真实硬件上进行了实验验证，发现该方法能稳定检测出温度引起的最大工作频率退化：在温度升高60°C的情况下，不同设备的频率退化最高可达13.79%。