Optical multi-context scrubbing operation on a redundant system.

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Architecture
• Radiation Effects

Background:

• Radiation can cause permanent failures in electronic components, disrupting system operations.
• Existing multi-context scrubbing methods cannot maintain sequential circuit states after permanent failures, necessitating system restarts.
• Real-time systems require continuous operation without interruption, even in the presence of radiation-induced failures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose the world's first optical multi-context scrubbing operation for redundant systems.
• To enable continuous operation of sequential circuits on radiation-hardened optically reconfigurable gate arrays (RH-ORGAs) despite permanent failures.
• To address the limitation of conventional methods that require system restarts after permanent failures.

Main Methods:

• Development of an optical multi-context scrubbing technique.
• Implementation and experimental evaluation on a radiation-hardened optically reconfigurable gate array (RH-OGRA).
• Focus on maintaining the state of sequential circuits and flip-flops after permanent failures.

Main Results:

• Demonstration of the world's first optical multi-context scrubbing operation.
• Successful maintenance of sequential circuit state and continuous operation post-permanent failure.
• Experimental validation on a radiation-hardened optically reconfigurable gate array.

Conclusions:

• The proposed optical multi-context scrubbing method effectively maintains sequential circuit states after permanent failures.
• This technique allows for uninterrupted operation in real-time systems exposed to radiation.
• The method is experimentally validated on radiation-hardened optically reconfigurable gate arrays.