ECE-40534 ------------------------------------------------------
HW #1 ------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Izadi
Problem 1 (25 Points)
- Three fundamental terms used in this course are fault, error, and, failure. In one to three sentences, clearly distinguish these terms from each other.
- What is the difference between a permanent fault, an intermittent fault, and a transient fault in term of fault duration?
- Comment on the following statement with justification. Single faults can cause multiple bit errors and multiple faults can cause single error.
- Comment on the following statement with justification. A fault-tolerant system necessarily has a high reliability.
- Define the following: reliability, availability, safety, and performability. Does a system with a high availability necessarily have a high reliability?
Problem 2 (15 Points)
Design a one bit 5MR voter.
Problem 3 (20 Points)
A 2M X 16 memory system is design using 1 M X 4 chips. Assume chip failure modes are single-bit cell (50%), single-row all-0's (20%), single-column all-0's (20%), and whole-chip all-0's (10%). Also, assume 0 and 1 values are equally likely. Compare and comment on relative performance (single-error-detection coverage) and overhead of the following approaches.
- Bit per chip
- Bit per multiple chips
- Duplication
- Single precision checksum (one sum for the entire memory).
Due: Wednesday 9/15/ 2004