Fault Sensitivity Analysis and Reliability Enhancement of AnalogtoDigital Converters.pdfVIP

1 Fault Sensitivity Analysis and Reliability Enhancement of Analog-to-Digital Converters Mandeep Singh, Member , IEEE, and Israel Koren, Fellow, IEEE Abstract— Reliability of systems used in space, avionic and crosstalk and various particle hits in radiation intense environ- biomedical applications is highly critical. Such systems consist ments like space. The effect of transient faults is to temporarily of an analog front-end to collect data, an Analog-to-Digital Con- change the behavior of the circuit often resulting in erroneous verter (ADC) to convert the collected data to digital form and a digital unit to process it. Though considerable amount of research outputs. This type of faults has been known to account for 85% has been performed to increase the reliability of digital blocks, the or more failures in digital systems [1], [2]. Since this might be same can not be claimed for mixed signal blocks. The reliability catastrophic in critical applications, these circuits usually incor- enhancement which we employ starts with fault sensitivity analysis porate some measures to increase their fault tolerance. followed by redesign. The data obtained from the sensitivity anal- ysis is used to grade blocks based on their sensitivity to faults. The The reliability of a system is determined by the fault toler- highly sensitive blocks can then be replaced by more reliable alter- ance of its constituent blocks. Systems in space, biomedical natives. The improvement gained by opting for more robust im- and avionics applications consist of an analog front-end to col- plementations might be limited due to the