Efficient NMRCD scheme for fault tolerance in responsive systems

Abstract

A variant of N-Modular Redundancy (NMR) allows an NMR system to have up to twice the throughput while keeping the same reliability model. Each task is executed by a majority of processors. The tasks are diagnosed (by comparing their results) rather than the processors (by a separate diagnostic process). This scheme does not increase the complexity of the circuitry involved as diagnosis does not have to be adaptive. Intermittent and transient, as well as permanent faults are tolerated.