SEU-Induced Persistent Error Propagation in FPGAs

This thesis introduces a new way to characterize the dynamic SEU cross section of an FPGA design in terms of its persistent and non-persistent components. An SEU in the persistent cross section results in a permanent interruption of service until reset. An SEU in the non-persistent cross section causes a temporary interruption of service, but in some cases this interruption may be tolerated. Techniques for measuring these cross sections are introduced. These cross sections can be measured and characterized for an arbitrary FPGA design. Furthermore, circuit components in the non-persistent and persistent cross section can statically be determined. Functional error mitigation techniques can leverage this identification to improve the reliability of some applications at lower costs by focusing mitigation on just the persistent cross section. The reliability of a practical signal processing application in use at Los Alamos National Laboratory was improved by nearly two orders of magnitude at a theoretical savings of over 53% over traditional comprehensive mitigation techniques such as full TMR.

Name thesis:degree_name

MS

Grantor dc:publisher

Brigham Young University - Provo

Author dc:creator

• Morgan, Keith S.

• SEU
• FPGA
• persistence
• error propagation
• simulator
• proton accelerator
• radiation
• dynamic testing
• Electrical and Computer Engineering

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/521

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-1520