DFT and BIST of a multichip module for high-energy physics experiments

Engineers at Politecnico di Torino designed a multichip module for high-energy physics experiments conducted on the Large Hadron Collider. An array of these MCMs handles multichannel data acquisition and signal processing. Testing the MCM from board to die level required a combination of DFT strategie

Online and Offline BIST in IP-Core Design

This article presents an online and offline built-in self-test architecture implemented as an SRAM intellectual-property core for telecommunication applications. The architecture combines fault-latency reduction, code-based fault detection, and architecture-based fault avoidance to meet reliability constraint

TFI-FTS: An efficient transient fault injection and fault-tolerant system for asynchronous circuits on FPGA platform

Designing VLSI digital circuits is challenging tasks because of testing the circuits concerning design time. The reliability and productivity of digital integrated circuits are primarily affected by the defects in the manufacturing process or systems. If the defects are more in the systems, which leads the fault in the systems. The fault tolerant systems are necessary to overcome the faults in the VLSI digital circuits. In this research article, an asynchronous circuits based an effective transient fault injection (TFI) and fault tolerant system (FTS) are modelled. The TFI system generates the faults based on BMA based LFSR with faulty logic insertion and one hot encoded register. The BMA based LFSR reduces the hardware complexity with less power consumption on-chip than standard LFSR method. The FTS uses triple mode redundancy (TMR) based majority voter logic (MVL) to tolerant the faults for asynchronous circuits. The benchmarked 74X-series circuits are considered as an asynchronous circuit for TMR logic. The TFI-FTS module is modeled using Verilog-HDL on Xilinx-ISE and synthesized on hardware platform. The Performance parameters are tabulated for TFI-FTS based asynchronous circuits. The performance of TFI-FTS Module is analyzed with 100% fault coverage. The fault coverage is validated using functional simulation of each asynchronous circuit with fault injection in TFI-FTS Module

Testing Embedded Memories in Telecommunication Systems

Extensive system testing is mandatory nowadays to achieve high product quality. Telecommunication systems are particularly sensitive to such a requirement; to maintain market competitiveness, manufacturers need to combine reduced costs, shorter life cycles, advanced technologies, and high quality. Moreover, strict reliability constraints usually impose very low fault latencies and a high degree of fault detection for both permanent and transient faults. This article analyzes major problems related to testing complex telecommunication systems, with particular emphasis on their memory modules, often so critical from the reliability point of view. In particular, advanced BIST-based solutions are analyzed, and two significant industrial case studies presente

Testing of mixed-signal systems using dynamic stimuli

The impulse response of a linear circuit element contains enough information to functionally characterise that element. A technique for comparison of observed and expected (reference) transient responses, which results in an absolute measure of device functionality, is presented. Comparisons of transient response test results with the results from existing test programs are also presented

Fault-tolerant computer study

A set of building block circuits is described which can be used with commercially available microprocessors and memories to implement fault tolerant distributed computer systems. Each building block circuit is intended for VLSI implementation as a single chip. Several building blocks and associated processor and memory chips form a self checking computer module with self contained input output and interfaces to redundant communications buses. Fault tolerance is achieved by connecting self checking computer modules into a redundant network in which backup buses and computer modules are provided to circumvent failures. The requirements and design methodology which led to the definition of the building block circuits are discussed

Design methods for fault-tolerant navigation computers

Design methods for fault tolerant navigation computer

Experimental analysis of computer system dependability

This paper reviews an area which has evolved over the past 15 years: experimental analysis of computer system dependability. Methodologies and advances are discussed for three basic approaches used in the area: simulated fault injection, physical fault injection, and measurement-based analysis. The three approaches are suited, respectively, to dependability evaluation in the three phases of a system's life: design phase, prototype phase, and operational phase. Before the discussion of these phases, several statistical techniques used in the area are introduced. For each phase, a classification of research methods or study topics is outlined, followed by discussion of these methods or topics as well as representative studies. The statistical techniques introduced include the estimation of parameters and confidence intervals, probability distribution characterization, and several multivariate analysis methods. Importance sampling, a statistical technique used to accelerate Monte Carlo simulation, is also introduced. The discussion of simulated fault injection covers electrical-level, logic-level, and function-level fault injection methods as well as representative simulation environments such as FOCUS and DEPEND. The discussion of physical fault injection covers hardware, software, and radiation fault injection methods as well as several software and hybrid tools including FIAT, FERARI, HYBRID, and FINE. The discussion of measurement-based analysis covers measurement and data processing techniques, basic error characterization, dependency analysis, Markov reward modeling, software-dependability, and fault diagnosis. The discussion involves several important issues studies in the area, including fault models, fast simulation techniques, workload/failure dependency, correlated failures, and software fault tolerance

Self-testing and repairing computer Patent

Self testing and repairing computer comprising control and diagnostic unit and rollback points for error correctio