This paper presents a Data Width-aware Register file Protection (DWRP) technique to cope with Multiple Bit Upsets (MBUs) occurring in the register file of embedded processors. The DWRP technique has been proposed based on the fact that there are often a significant number of bits in the register file, which are not fully occupied by data. The DWRP technique efficiently exploits these available free bits for reliability enhancement purposes. In this regard, every register is equipped with three extra tag bits to specify the amount of available free bits in a register. Then the appropriate parity or hamming code is used based on the information of the tag field to protect the register file...