Strong fault-secure and strongly self-checking domino-CMOS implementations of totally self-checking circuits

Abstract

The totally self-checking (TSC) concept is well established for applications in the area of online error-indication. TSC circuits can detect both transient and permanent faults. They consist of a functional circuit with encoded inputs and outputs and a checker which monitors these outputs. The TSC concept can be generalized for the functional circuits using the strongly fault-secure (SFS) concept. Here, the concept of strongly self-checking (SSC) circuits, which is a generalization from TSC circuits, is introduced. Most of the TSC circuits presented in the literature are designed at the logic gate level using the stuck-at fault model. However, this fault model is inadequate for MOS technologies. Here, it is shown that a TSC gate-level functional circuit can be implemented in the domino-CMOS technology as an SFS circuit, while a TSC gate-level checker can be implemented as an SSC checker. For the domino-CMOS implementation the fault model is enlarged to stuck-at, stuck-open, and stuck-on faults. It is shown that domino-CMOS is much more suitable for implementation of self-checking circuits than static CMOS.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>