Reliability and fault tolerance analysis of FPGA platforms

This paper presents reliability and fault tolerance analyses of FPGA platforms. FPGA stands for Field Programmable Gate Arrays. It is a digital technology designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing-hence “field-programmable”. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a Hardware Description Language (HDL), similar to that used for an Application-Specific integrated Circuit (ASIC). The FPGA platforms that are investigated are Digilent Nexys digital design platforms, built around Xilinx FPGA technology. They are ideal platforms for any engineer to gain experience with Xilinx´s latest technologies, and are perfectly suited to the classroom. These platforms are intensively used in learning environments, such as colleges and universities world-wide, so they need to be reliable and robust, surviving intensive use over the years. Advanced reliability estimations for these FPGA platforms are presented, using various modules and prediction methods of CARE-CAD tool, a powerful software tool for reliability analysis (Mean Time Between Failures Module, Fault Tree Analysis Module, Reliability Block Diagram Module). After various reliability estimations are performed considering every functional block of the FPGA platforms, fault tolerance analyses are performed. Fault tolerant techniques, based on hardware redundancy, are suggested for the less reliable blocks of the platforms. New reliability analyses are performed to see if the addition of redundant blocks and components is justified, improving the reliability of the platforms for short and long mission times. Estimating the reliability of various blocks of the FPGA platforms help the designer to make the necessary changes, designing more robust products.