International Business Machines Corporation
Detecting single event upsets and stuck-at faults in RAM-based data path controllers

Abstract:

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving data comprising a plurality of data elements; creating a binary sequence comprising a plurality of bonus bits using a first binary sequence generator; using a first exclusive-or module to provide a XOR calculation using bits of each data element of the data with a bonus bit from the binary sequence; passing each data element along with its corresponding parity bit to an input of a data path; receiving each data element along with its corresponding parity bit at an output of the data path; creating the binary sequence using a second binary sequence generator; using a second XOR module to XOR together bits of each data element along with its corresponding parity bit and a bonus bit from the binary sequence to produce a result; and analyzing the result to determine whether an error has occurred to the data in the data path.