A new approach to control flow checking without program modification

Abstract

An approach to concurrent control flow checking that avoids performance and software compatibility problems while preserving a high error coverage and a low detection latency is proposed. The approach is called watchdog direct processing. Extensions of the basic method, taking into account the characteristics of complex processors, are also considered. The architecture of a watchdog processor based on the proposed method is described. Implementation results are reported for a watchdog designed for the Intel 80386sx microprocessor.<>