Using Redundancy for Testable and Repairable Systolic Arrays

CMU-CS-85-157

Lee A. Shombert

August 1985 - Thesis oot Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

This thesis presents a method of using spares to enhance the reliability and testability of systolic arrays. The method, called roving spares, provides fault detection and fault isolation without interrupting array operation, essentially providing a self testing array. Systolic arrays are defined and the design space of systolic arrays is identified. The methodology for roving spares on the simplest, but still very powerful, type of systolic array is then derived. Several detailed designs are generated to provide sample data points for the analysis that follows. The analysis shows that reliability is increased by factors of two to ten, over a nonredundant array, and that this improvement is achieved at low cost. The testing capability of roving spares does not significantly decrease the reliability benefits of spares. A brief analysis of a more complex systolic array indicates that the benefits achievable for the simple array can be expected for all types of systolic arrays.

141 pages

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