Machine Check Architecture for Physical Constraint Violation Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern computing systems lack the ability to detect violations of physical infrastructure constraints such as voltage, power, sustained current, peak current, or temperature, which can lead to potential component failure without being detected by existing machine check architectures.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that utilizes a microcontroller, such as a system management unit, in conjunction with a machine check architecture to detect and record violations of physical infrastructure constraints, triggering a machine-check exception and performing corrective actions like logging, reporting, or profiling telemetry events.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If existing machine check architectures are used, then hardware errors such as system bus errors and cache errors can be detected, but violations of physical infrastructure constraints such as voltage, power, current, and temperature cannot be detected
Solution Approach 1:
The machine check architecture is extended to serve multiple functions: it continues to detect traditional hardware errors (system bus errors, cache errors) while simultaneously detecting violations of physical infrastructure constraints (voltage, power, current, temperature). This is achieved by having the microcontroller report both types of violations to the same machine check architecture, which then triggers appropriate machine-check exceptions for both categories of errors.
2Reliability
If microcontroller reports physical infrastructure constraint violations to machine check architecture, then detection capability is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The microcontroller acts as an intermediary that monitors physical infrastructure constraints and translates violations into a standardized reporting format that the machine check architecture can process. This intermediary layer enables the integration of constraint monitoring into the existing error detection framework without requiring fundamental changes to the machine check architecture itself, thus managing complexity while improving detection capability.
Data Source
AI summary
A disclosed method can include (i) reporting, by a microcontroller, detection of a violation of a physical infrastructure constraint to a machine check architecture, (ii) triggering, by the machine check architecture in response to the reporting, a machine-check exception such that the violation of the physical infrastructure constraint is recorded, and (iii) performing a corrective action based on the triggering of the machine-check exception. Various other apparatuses, systems, and methods are also disclosed.