Resilient Computer Architecture

Contemporaneous computing systems include personal computers, mobile phones, Internet of Things (IoT), 5G devices, Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs), and enterprise-wide systems. They are susceptible to anomalies, which may affect its safety, reliability, and security. Anomalies may include: bugs due to, for example, porting of software between different computing platforms; malicious code to intentionally cause harm or subvert the intended system function; and indirect effects due to faults in the physical layer, like environmental conditions, electromagnetic fields, space radiation, aging, manufacturing imperfections, and physical attacks.Mitigating these anomalies is paramount under the penalty of limiting the continuous improvement and the employment of modern systems.

The hardware resilience research field involves the performance and efficiency of techniques and strategies based on hardware, targeting to strengthen the robustness of computing systems. One example is the hardware-based malware detection approach, which addresses malicious code detection through events in the processor’s micro-architecture, improving the security of the systems. Other examples are the physical unclonable functions, physical devices that provide a digital “fingerprint” response, adding confidentiality and integrity to the systems.