Enhancing reliability of combinational circuits against soft errors by using a generalized modular redundancy scheme

Nano-scale devices are continuously shrinking, operating at lower voltages and higher frequencies. This makes them more susceptible to environmental perturbations, and distinguished by their high dynamic fault rates. Redundancy techniques are widely used to increase the reliability of combinational logic circuits. In this paper, a generalized modular redundancy (GMR) scheme to enhance the reliability of combinational circuits is proposed. Additionally, several aspects regarding the application of this scheme are explored. Also, a methodology for applying GMR scheme is developed. Reliability analysis shows that the proposed methodology can achieve reliability figures higher than that of triple modular redundancy (TMR). In general, significant overhead savings are accomplished in addition to that superior reliability.