Analog Defect Injection and Fault Simulation Techniques: A Systematic Literature Review

Since the last century, the exponential growth of the semiconductor industry has led to the creation of tiny and complex integrated circuits, e.g., sensors, actuators, and smart power. Innovative techniques are needed to ensure the correct functionality of analog devices that are ubiquitous in every smart system. The ISO 26262 standard for functional safety in the automotive context specifies that fault injection is necessary to validate all electronic devices. For decades, standardization of defect modeling and injection mainly focused on digital circuits and, in a minor part, on analog ones. An initial attempt is being made with the IEEE P2427 draft standard that started to give a structured and formal organization to the analog testing field. Various methods have been proposed in the literature to speed up the fault simulation of the defect universe for an analog circuit. A more limited number of papers seek to reduce the overall simulation time by reducing the number of defects to be simulated. This literature survey describes the state-of-the-art of analog defect injection and fault simulation methods. The survey is based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodological flow, allowing for a systematic and complete literature survey. Each selected paper has been categorized and presented to provide an overview of all the available approaches. In addition, the limitations of the various approaches are discussed by showing possible future directions

Acoustic Emission Technology for High Power Microwave Radar Tubes

Microwave tubes used in high-power radar and communications systems are expensive and have an operating life of a few thousand hours. When one fails, it is generally impossible to determine the sequence of events that contributed to its failure. Previous investigators have designed microprocessor-based systems with as many as 11 sensors to monitor tube performance, provide tube protection, and record a comprehensive tube failure history. These systems are limited by the small amount of time available during the tube’s interpulse period for data buffering and fault analysis. They work well if the microwave tube is operated with 200 or fewer pulses per second. However, many tubes are operated at up to 1000 pulses per second. In this effort, an alternative nondestructive testing technique using acoustic emission (AE) was used for in-situ monitoring of normal and abnormal performance of radar tubes, including a magnetron, a klystron, and a traveling wave tube amplifier. This technique captures changes in radio frequency (RF) output pulses due to irregular operation and it is a real-time instantaneous in-situ indicator of the performance of microwave radar tubes. It also offers the possibility of developing built-in prognostic capabilities within the radar system to provide advanced warning of a system malfunction. Understanding the sequence of events leading to a tube failure allows for better maintenance, extends the operating life of the system, and results in significant cost avoidance

Digital Signal Processing Research Program

Contains table of contents for Section 2, an introduction, reports on twenty research projects and a list of publications.Lockheed Sanders, Inc. Contract BZ4962U.S. Army Research Laboratory Grant QK-8819U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-93-1-0686National Science Foundation Grant MIP 95-02885U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-95-1-0834U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-96-1-0930U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-95-1-0362National Defense Science and Engineering FellowshipU.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-96-1-0072National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Grant MIP 95-02885Lockheed Sanders, Inc. Grant N00014-93-1-0686National Science Foundation Graduate FellowshipU.S. Army Research Laboratory/ARL Advanced Sensors Federated Lab Program Contract DAAL01-96-2-000