Laser Fault Injection Methodology for Software Reliability Testing

In the last decade, laser-based fault injection has become an interesting alternative for testing hardware components against transient faults compared to expensive and complex radiation test campaigns. The laser’s ability to target specific areas of the device under testing is a valuable feature not present in traditional radiation-based testing. While the laser technique has been the subject of several studies in recent years, an analysis from the software perspective that highlights the practical challenges is missing. This article presents the experimental procedures and the obstacles experienced in achieving repeatability and reproducibility, with a special focus on software reliability testing.