An automatic netlist and floorplanning approach to improve the MTTR of scrubbing techniques (abstract only)

We introduce a new SEU mitigation approach which minimizes the scrubbing effort by a) using an automatic classification of the criticality of netlist instances and their resulting configuration bits, and by b) minimizing the number of frames which must be scrubbed by using intelligent floorplanning. The criticality of configuration bits is defined by the actions needed to correct a radiation-induced SEU at this bit. Indeed, circuits that involve feedback loops might still and infinitely cause a malfunction even if scrubbing is applied to involved configuration frames. Here, only supplementary state-restoring might be a viable solution. By analyzing an FPGA design already at the logic level and partition configuration bits of the resulting FPGA mapping into so-called essential bits and critical bits, we are able to significantly reduce the number of time consuming state-restoring actions. Moreover, by using placement and routing constraints, it is shown how to minimize the number of frames which have to be reconfigured or checked when using scrubbing. By applying both methods, we will show a reduction of the Mean-Time-To-Repair (MTTR) for sequential benchmark circuits by up to 48.5% compared to a state-of-the-art approach.