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Concurrent error detection

Concurrent error detection (CED) is the detection of errors or faults in a
circuit or data path concurrent with normal operation of that circuit. The general
approach for CED is to calculate a check symbol for the inputs to the circuit under
operation, predict the check symbol that will result for the output of the circuit for
those inputs, and compare the predicted check symbol to the one that is actually
calculated for the output. If the predicted and actual check symbols are different,
an error or fault has been detected. The alternative to this check symbol prediction
is to use a second copy of the circuit under operation and compare the results of the
two circuits. For some classes of circuits the prediction of the output check symbol
can require less circuitry than a second copy of the circuit being tested. Four
examples of these types of circuits are examined in this dissertation: Arithmetic
Logic Units (ALUs), array multipliers, self-synchronous scrambler-descrambler
pairs with their intervening data path, and switch fabrics.
Faults in integrated circuits tend to produce unidirectional errors.
Unidirectional errors are those in which all of the errors are in the same direction
(e.g., 0 to 1 errors) within the block of data covered by a given check symbol. For
this reason, codes that are optimized for unidirectional errors are the focus of
investigation for most of the applications. In particular, the Bose-Lin codes are
examined for those applications where unidirectional errors are expected to be
typical. In order to examine the performance of the Bose-Lin codes in one of these
applications, it was necessary to determine the theoretical performance for Bose-
Lin codes for error rates beyond what had been previously studied. This analysis of
Bose-Lin codes with large numbers of "burst" errors also included a further
generalization of the codes. / Graduation date: 2002

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/32369
Date19 April 2002
CreatorsGorshe, Steven Scott
ContributorsBose, Bella
Source SetsOregon State University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis/Dissertation

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