Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Chandramouli, R..
Fault-tolerant-microcomputer concept based on enhancing "simple" computer with redundancy and self-checking logic circuits detect hardware faults. Interface and checking logic and redundant processors confer on 16-bit microcomputer ability to check itself for hardware faults. Checking circuitry also checks itself. Concept of self-checking complementary pairs (SCCP's) employed throughout ICL unit.
Algorithm specifies sequence of input test signals and interpretation of resulting output signals for identifying stuck-open faults in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated logic circuits. Incorporated in software for online production testing of CMOS circuits.
A simple and general model of the interfaces and check circuits used for comparing and detecting faults in a pair of 16-bit processors is described, and problems encountered in the application of TI 9900 processors are discussed. The greatest incompatibility is found to lie between the rollback structures of the CPUs and the interface and check logic (ICL) model. The ICL model generates a reset when an error is detected, and a rollback is expected to occur when it is released. The TI 9900 requires a reset of minimum duration, and after release goes through an initialization cycle, obtains rollback parameters from fixed memory locations, and executes the rollback, consistent with the ICL. The ICL is relatively simple, having a complexity equivalent to fewer than 1000 gates.
Recently it has been found that a class of failure related to a particular technology (CMOS) cannot be modelled as the conventional stuck-at fault model. These failures change the combinational behavior of CMOS logic gates into a sequential one. Such a failure is modelled as a fault, called the Stuck-Open fault (SOP). The object of this paper is to develop a procedure to detect single SOPs in combinational circuits. It is shown, that in general, tests generated for stuck-at faults when applied in a particular sequence will detect all single SOP faults. In case of single redundancy in the network, the SOP fault on the redundant line cannot be detected. When there is reconvergent fan-out in the network, there is a one-one correspondence between the conditions for stuck-at fault and stuck-open fault detectability.