Run-Time Recovery Mechanism for Transient and Permanent Hardware Faults Based on Distributed, Self-Organized Dynamic Partially Reconfigurable Systems
Victor Dumitriu, Lev Kirischian, Valeri Kirischian · IEEE Transactions on Computers · 2015
Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are rapidly gaining popularity as implementation platforms for complex space-borne computing systems. However, such systems are exposed to cosmic radiation with levels orders of magnitude higher than terrestrial levels which can cause transient and even permanent hardware faults in on-board computing platforms. Because of this, development of effective fault mitigation methods and self-repair mechanisms has become a vital aspect for FPGA-based space-borne computing platforms. This work presents a novel method for transient and permanent fault mitigation and run-time fault recovery for commercial-grade FPGA devices with partially reconfigurable tile-based architectures. The proposed method ensures the same pre-determined recovery time for transient and permanent hardware faults through dynamic on-chip component relocation regardless of the fault type. The method makes use of fully distributed control, communication, self-synchronization and self-integration mechanisms embedded in each on-chip hardware component. Run-time collaboration between components provides relocation & fault mitigation procedures. The distributed nature of the above mechanisms excludes most central failure points which could cause non-restorable system faults. This method has been implemented, tested and verified on a Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA platform. Results show that the proposed method is significantly more resource efficient when compared with Triple-Module Redundancy or central, software-based control mechanisms.