A CASE-STUDY OF SELF-CHECKING CIRCUITS RELIABILITY

In this paper, we analyze the reliability of self-checking circuits. A case study is presented in which a fault-tolerant system with duplica ted self-checking modules is compared to the TMR version. It is shown that a duplicated self-checking system has a much higher reliability t han that of the TMR counterpart. More importantly, the reliability of the self-checking system does not drop as sharply as that of the TMR v ersion. We also demonstrate the trade-offs between hardware complexity and error handling capability of self-checking circuits. Alternative self-checking designs where some hardware redundancies are removed wit h the lost of fault-secure and/or self-testing properties are also stu died.