Electronics System Design Techniques for Safety Critical Applications

ISBN-13: 9781402089787 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 146 str.

Luca Sterpone

Opis

What is exactly "Safety"? A safety system should be defined as a system that will not endanger human life or the environment. A safety-critical system requires utmost care in their specification and design in order to avoid possible errors in their implementation that should result in unexpected system's behavior during his operating "life." An inappropriate method could lead to loss of life, and will almost certainly result in financial penalties in the long run, whether because of loss of business or because the imposition of fines. Risks of this kind are usually managed with the methods and tools of the "safety engineering." A life-critical system is designed to 9 lose less than one life per billion (10 ). Nowadays, computers are used at least an order of magnitude more in safety-critical applications compared to two decades ago. Increasingly electronic devices are being used in applications where their correct operation is vital to ensure the safety of the human life and the environment. These application ranging from the anti-lock braking systems (ABS) in automobiles, to the fly-by-wire aircrafts, to biomedical supports to the human care. Therefore, it is vital that electronic designers be aware of the safety implications of the systems they develop. State of the art electronic systems are increasingly adopting progr- mable devices for electronic applications on earthling system. In particular, the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices are becoming very interesting due to their characteristics in terms of performance, dimensions and cost.

Spis treści

Preface. PART I 1. An Introduction to FPGA Devices in Radiation Environments. 2. Radiation Effects on SRAM-based FPGAs. 3. Analytical Algorithms for Faulty Effects Analysis. 4. Reliability-oriented Place and Route Algorithm. 5. A Novel Design Flow for Fault Tolerance. PART II 6. Configuration System Based on Internal FPGA Decompression. 7. Reconfigurable Devices for the Analysis of DNA Microarray. 8. Reconfigurable Compute Fabric Architectures. Index.

O autorze

Winner of the EDAA (European Design Automation Association) Outstanding Monograph Award in the Reconfigurable Electronics section

Blurb

Nowadays, electronic systems are increasingly used in safety critical applications compared to two decades ago. Electronic devices are being used in applications where their correct operation is vital to ensure the safety of the human life and the environment. These applications ranging from the anti-lock braking systems in automobiles, to the fly-by-wire aircrafts, to biomedical supports to the human care. It is, therefore, vital that electronic designers be aware the safety implications of the systems they develop. This book attacks SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Array, as the most widely used reconfigurable devices, from a new perspective. It provides a series of new algorithms and techniques for the evaluation and the increase of the dependability when faulty effects such as Single Event Upsets (SEUs) of Soft-Errors (SEs) are considered. Particular relevance is given to the radiation phenomena concerning both the physical and the architectural design. The innovation of the analysis and the design flows proposed in this manuscript are a milestone of a complete design methodology solving the industrial designer’s needs for implementing SAFE electronic systems using SRAM-based FPGAs in critical environments, in particular the space or avionics ones.

Electronics System Design Techniques for Safety Critical Applications gives an investigating overview on side-devices such as Reconfigurable Compute Fabric and depicts the advantages and constraints of the reconfigurable computing based on FPGA for multimedia applications and biomedical applications.