An Error Recoverable Structure Based on Complementary Logic and Alternating- Retry

摘要

Modern VLSI circuits provide adequate on-chip resources. So that online testing and retry integrated into a chip are absolutely necessary for system-on-a-chip technology. This paper firstly proposes a general online testing plus retrying structure. Obviously, although retry can mask transient or intermittent faults, it is useless for handling permanent faults generally. To solve this problem, this paper presents a novel dual modular redundancy (DMR) structure using complementary logic—alternating-complementary logic (CL-ACL) switching mode. During error-free operation, the CL-ACL structure operates by complementary logic mode. After an error is detected, it retries by alternating logic mode. If all errors belong to single or multiple temporary 0/1-error or stuck-at-error produced by one module, then these errors can be corrected effectively. The results obtained from the simulation validate the correctness of the CL-ACL structure. Analytic results show that the delay of the CL-ACL structure is dramatically less than that of a DMR structure using alternating-complementary logic mode.