Heterogeneous parallel error detection is an approach to achieving fault-tolerant processors, leveraging multiple power-efficient cores to re-execute software originally run on a high-performance core. Yet, its complex components, gathering data cross-chip from many parts of the core, raise questions of how to build it into commodity cores without heavy design invasion and extensive re-engineering. We build the first full-RTL design, MEEK, into an open-source SoC, from microarchitecture and ISA to the OS and programming model. We identify and solve bottlenecks and bugs overlooked in previous work, and demonstrate that MEEK offers microsecond-level detection capacity with affordable overheads. By trading off architectural functionalities across codesigned hardware-software layers, MEEK features only light changes to a mature out-of-order superscalar core, simple coordinating software layers, and a few lines of operating-system code. The Repo. of MEEK's source code: https://github.com/SEU-ACAL/reproduce-MEEK-DAC-25.
@article{arxiv.2504.01347,
title = {MEEK: Re-thinking Heterogeneous Parallel Error Detection Architecture for Real-World OoO Superscalar Processors},
author = {Zhe Jiang and Minli Liao and Sam Ainsworth and Dean You and Timothy Jones},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.01347},
year = {2025}
}