Architectural and Software-Based Mitigation of Soft Errors in Safety-Critical Embedded Processor Systems

Abstract

Soft errors have emerged as one of the most critical reliability threats in modern embedded processor systems, particularly those deployed in safety-critical domains such as automotive, aerospace, industrial control, and space applications. As semiconductor technologies continue to scale, processors become increasingly vulnerable to transient faults caused by radiation-induced phenomena, including single event upsets and single event transients. These faults do not permanently damage hardware but can corrupt data, alter control flow, or disrupt system behavior, leading to potentially catastrophic consequences in real-time and mission-critical environments. This research article presents a comprehensive and theoretically grounded investigation into architectural and software-based mitigation strategies for soft errors in embedded processors, strictly grounded in established literature and standards. Drawing upon foundational dependability theory, processor architecture documentation, radiation effects studies, and safety regulations, the article systematically analyzes the mechanisms of soft error occurrence, their impact on processor subsystems, and the spectrum of mitigation techniques available at different abstraction levels. Particular emphasis is placed on lockstep architectures, control-flow checking, checkpointing, compiler-assisted fault detection, and hybrid hardware–software approaches. Experimental considerations derived from accelerator-based radiation testing environments and real-world safety standards such as ISO 26262 and ECSS are integrated to contextualize design trade-offs. The results are discussed in terms of reliability improvement, performance overhead, determinism, and certification implications. The article concludes by identifying current limitations and outlining future research directions for resilient embedded computing in increasingly hostile operational environments.