An Efficient Algorithm To Analyze New Imperfect Fault Coverage Models

Abstract

Fault tolerance has been an essential architectural attribute for achieving high reliability in many critical applications of digital systems. Automatic recovery and reconfiguration mechanisms play a crucial role in implementing fault tolerance because an uncovered fault may lead to a system or subsystem failure even when adequate redundancy exists. In addition, an excessive level of redundancy may even reduce the system reliability. Therefore, an accurate analysis must account for not only the system structure but also the system fault and error handling behavior. The models that capture the fault and error handling behavior are called coverage models. The appropriate coverage modeling approach depends on the type of fault tolerant techniques used. Recent research emphasizes the importance of two new categories of coverage models: Fault Level Coverage (FLC) models and one-on-one level coverage (OLC) models. However, the methods for solving FLC and OLC models are much more limited, primarily because of the complex nature of the dependency introduced by the reconfiguration mechanisms. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm for solving FLC and OLC models.