Fault Secure Encoder and Decoder for NanoMemory Applications

Memory cells have been protected from soft errors for more than a decade; due to the increase in soft error rate in logic circuits, the encoder and decoder circuitry around the memory blocks have become susceptible to soft errors as well and must also be protected. We introduce a new approach to design fault-secure encoder and decoder circuitry for memory designs. The key novel contribution of this paper is identifying and defining a new class of error-correcting codes whose redundancy makes the design of fault-secure detectors (FSD) particularly simple. We further quantify the importance of protecting encoder and decoder circuitry against transient errors, illustrating a scenario where the system failure rate (FIT) is dominated by the failure rate of the encoder and decoder. We prove that Euclidean geometry low-density parity-check (EG-LDPC) codes have the fault-secure detector capability. Using some of the smaller EG-LDPC codes, we can tolerate bit or nanowire defect rates of 10% and fault rates of 10^(-18) upsets/device/cycle, achieving a FIT rate at or below one for the entire memory system and a memory density of 10^(11) bit/cm^2 with nanowire pitch of 10 nm for memory blocks of 10 Mb or larger. Larger EG-LDPC codes can achieve even higher reliability and lower area overhead

Codes for protection from synchronization loss and additive errors

Codes for protection from synchronization loss and additive error

Quantum memories based on engineered dissipation

Storing quantum information for long times without disruptions is a major requirement for most quantum information technologies. A very appealing approach is to use self-correcting Hamiltonians, i.e. tailoring local interactions among the qubits such that when the system is weakly coupled to a cold bath the thermalization process takes a long time. Here we propose an alternative but more powerful approach in which the coupling to a bath is engineered, so that dissipation protects the encoded qubit against more general kinds of errors. We show that the method can be implemented locally in four dimensional lattice geometries by means of a toric code, and propose a simple 2D set-up for proof of principle experiments.Comment: 6 +8 pages, 4 figures, Includes minor corrections updated references and aknowledgement

Legal and voluntary investor protection and early IFRS-adoption: A study of European companies.

Previous studies (Dumontier and Raffournier, 1998, El-Gazzar et al, 1999; Cuijpers and Buijink, 2004) typically explain the early adoption of IFRS by firm-specific benefits. However, the adoption of IFRS also leads to costs for company insiders, namely less managerial discretion and as a consequence smaller private benefits due to increased disclosure requirements and less accounting method choices. This paper argues that the cost of adopting IFRS depends on characteristics of the institutional environment, more specifically the level of investor protection. Using a sample of European companies, we find that IFRS is more likely adopted in countries with strong laws protecting investors and/or extensive corporate governance recommendations where the loss of private benefits following IFRS-adoption is lower. Furthermore, the results show that corporate governance recommendations are as effective as hard laws in stimulating IFRS-adoption and that their impact increases as laws become weaker. This suggests that by improving corporate governance codes, countries can easily reduce the extraction of private benefits by managers and enhance the quality of the financial information. However, when looking at specific recommendations and laws, we find that shareholder rights with regard to voting rights and the general meeting need to be regulated by law in order to effectively reduce the level of private benefits.Accounting; Characteristics; Choice; Companies; Corporate governance; Cost; Costs; Country; Disclosure; Early adoption of IFRS; Governance; Impact; Information; Law; Legal investor protection; Managers; Order; Private benefits of control; Quality; Recommendations; Requirements; Research; Studies;

Faulty Successive Cancellation Decoding of Polar Codes for the Binary Erasure Channel

We study faulty successive cancellation decoding of polar codes for the binary erasure channel. To this end, we introduce a simple erasure-based fault model and we show that, under this model, polarization does not happen, meaning that fully reliable communication is not possible at any rate. Moreover, we provide numerical results for the frame erasure rate and bit erasure rate and we study an unequal error protection scheme that can significantly improve the performance of the faulty successive cancellation decoder with negligible overhead.Comment: As presented at ISITA 201