Title
Exploring the use of approximate TMR to mask transient faults in logic with low area overhead
Abstract
The use of Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) with majority voters can guarantee 100% single fault masking coverage for a given circuit against transient faults. However, this methodology presents a minimum area overhead of 200% compared to the original circuit. In order to reduce considerably the area overhead without compromising significantly the fault coverage, TMR can use approximated logic circuits to generate redundant modules that are optimized for area, compared to the original module. In this work, we propose the use of only approximate logic modules to compose the TMR in order to reduce the area overhead close to minimal values. We use a Boolean factorization based method to compute approximate functions and to select the best composition of approximate logic. The circuits are mapped using the ABC logic synthesis tool and an academic cell library. All the tests are performed using a fault injection tool designed specifically to cope with logic gate and transistor description level. For a combinational circuit (5 inputs, 10 literals) the results have shown that it is possible to maintain the maximum protected p-n junction ratio of 98.88% with only 165% area overhead when using ATMR; and a maximum of 94.66% protected p-n junction ratio with only an 88% area when using full-ATMR. Results for a 4-bit ripple-carry adder showed a protected p-n juncion ratio of almost 97% with 168% area overhead and 93.5% ivith only 136% area overhead. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1016/j.microrel.2015.06.125
MICROELECTRONICS RELIABILITY
Keywords
Field
DocType
Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR),Approximate circuit,Approximate-TMR,Fault tolerance,Transient faults
Logic synthesis,Logic gate,Fault coverage,Adder,Parallel computing,Triple modular redundancy,Electronic engineering,Combinational logic,Engineering,Electronic circuit,Fault injection
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
55
9-10
0026-2714
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
0.54
10
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Iuri A. C. Gomes1161.50
Mayler G. A. Martins28810.08
André Inácio Reis313421.33
Fernanda Lima Kastensmidt455461.82