Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1801.04886

Dependability modeling and optimization of triple modular redundancy partitioning for SRAM-based FPGAs

Khaza Anuarul Hoque·Otmane Ait Mohamed·Yvon Savaria
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

SRAM-based FPGAs are popular in the aerospace industry for their field programmability and low cost. However, they suffer from cosmic radiation-induced Single Event Upsets (SEUs). Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) is a well-known technique to mitigate SEUs in FPGAs that is often used with another SEU mitigation technique known as configuration scrubbing. Traditional TMR provides protection against a single fault at a time, while partitioned TMR provides improved reliability and availability. In this paper, we present a methodology to analyze TMR partitioning at early design stage using probabilistic model checking. The proposed formal model can capture both single and multiple-cell upset scenarios, regardless of any assumption of equal partition sizes. Starting with a high-level description of a design, a Markov model is constructed from the Data Flow Graph (DFG) using a specified number of partitions, a component characterization library and a user defined scrub rate. Such a model and exhaustive analysis captures all the considered failures and repairs possible in the system within the radiation environment. Various reliability and availability properties are then verified automatically using the PRISM model checker exploring the relationship between the scrub frequency and the number of TMR partitions required to meet the design requirements. Also, the reported results show that based on a known voter failure rate, it is possible to find an optimal number of partitions at early design stages using our proposed method.

Explore related subjects

cs.DCcs.ARcs.LO

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Khaza Anuarul Hoque, Otmane Ait Mohamed, Yvon Savaria. 2019-10-08. Dependability modeling and optimization of triple modular redundancy partitioning for SRAM-based FPGAs. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2018.10.011

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Online Treasure Hunt in Vertex-Permuted Dynamic Rings

We study the problem of treasure hunt by a group of $k \geq 1$ agents in vertex-permuted dynamic rings (VP). In this model, the $n$ vertices remain on a ring but are permuted at each time step. We first show that treasure hunt is impossible for any $k \leq n-3$ agents, if there are no restrictions on the sequence of permutations used in the dynamic ring. We then study the $VP(\delta)$ setting, in which for every pair $i, j$ of vertices, the edge $(i, j)$ is guaranteed to appear within $\delta$ steps. We show that the class $VP(\delta)$ is feasible only for $\delta \geq \left\lceil \frac{n-1}{2}\right\rceil$. For the one-agent case, we show a tight bound of $\Theta(\delta n)$ on the worst-case search time as well as competitive ratio of any online algorithm for treasure hunt, provided $\delta \geq 2n$. We then give an optimal algorithm for $k$ agents, thereby showing that $k$ agents can obtain a speedup of $k$ on the worst-case search time. Finally, in the R-VP setting, in which in every step, the vertices are arranged as a ring according to a random permutation, we show that treasure hunt takes expected $\Theta(n)$ steps against an oblivious adversary and $\Theta(n \log n)$ steps against an adaptive adversary.

cs.DC↗
arXiv2026

The Computing Channel: How Modulation Programs the Airwaves

Distributed computing and distributed artificial intelligence require frequent exchanges of intermediate results, although many applications need only an aggregate rather than messages from individual devices. Conventional systems recover each message before computing the aggregate, whereas over-the-air computation (OAC) exploits simultaneous transmission to obtain it directly. However, dominant OAC implementations rely on analog signaling, creating a mismatch with finite-precision data and digital communication procedures. This article presents digital function-oriented communication, in which finite-alphabet symbol representations and receiver decisions are jointly designed so that multiple-access superposition encodes the desired function without recovering individual inputs. We introduce its computational-constellation principle, main design approaches, extensions, and implementation challenges. Federated edge learning illustrates how the framework can reduce user-dependent data-bearing resources while operating directly on quantized model updates.

cs.DC↗
arXiv2026

Can AI Remediate Backend Failures Safely? GuardedAct with Blast-Radius-Aware Sandboxing

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promising capabilities in generating remediation actions for microservice failures. However, directly executing AI-generated repair actions in production risks cascading collateral damage. We propose GuardedAct, a sandbox-first remediation framework that interposes a blast-radius-aware verification layer between the LLM action generator and the production environment. GuardedAct operates in four phases: (1) ingesting a diagnosis report together with the live system topology and recent telemetry, (2) prompting an LLM to produce a ranked list of candidate remediation actions, (3) simulating each action in a lightweight digital-twin sandbox that estimates the blast radius and assigns a risk label, and (4) enforcing a rollback-confidence gate that auto-executes only low-risk actions while escalating high-risk ones for human review. We evaluate GuardedAct on five fault scenarios injected into the DeathStarBench social-network application. Experimental results show that GuardedAct achieves an overall recovery rate of 87.4% while reducing collateral damage by 79.7% relative to direct LLM execution (from 25.6% to 5.2%), at the cost of a modest sandbox-induced increase in mean time to recovery (approximately 8 s). Ablation studies confirm that each component contributes meaningfully to the safety-speed trade-off.

cs.DC↗