On-line test for fault-secure fault identification

In an increasing number of applications, reliability is essential. On-fine resistance to permanent faults is a difficult and important aspect of provi ding reliability. Particularly vexing is the problem of fault identificatio n. Current methods are either domain specific or expensive, me have develop ed a fault-secure methodology far permanent fault identification through al gorithmic duplication without necessitating complete functional unit replic ation. Fault identification is achieved through a unique binding methodolog y during high-level synthesis based on an extension of parity-like error co rrection equations in the domain bf functional units. The result is an auto mated chip-level approach with extremely low area and cost overhead.