Fault-tolerant ASIC design for high system dependability

Abstract

Fault-tolerant devices are becoming more and more important in safety-critical applications. In addition, because of further decreased geometries, integrated circuits are becoming more susceptible to induced interference. This paper presents new methods and design concepts to make application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) devices fault-tolerant to effects generated in the harsh automotive environment, especially to single event effects (SEEs). We describe how to mitigate single event effects which can immediately affect the function of electronic components. ASICs provided with this technique will increase the reliability and dependability while simultaneously maintaining the full real-time behaviour of the system.