A real-time, fault-tolerant convolution device

Correlation and convolution are ubiquitous operations in the field of signal processing as the means of implementing filtering processes. The two operations differ only in the order in which multiplicands are combined, they may therefore be realised with the same hardware. (Furthermore, if the kernel is symmetric, or only the modulus of the result is required, then the order of presentation of the multiplicands is unimportant). The paper presents the design of a processor that is able to achieve multiplication and accumulation within 150 ns. Sufficient cells may be connected in a one dimensional array to be able to perform useful correlation operations at real time rates (that is 25 frames of 512 by 512 pixels per second being processed). Two aspects of fault tolerance have been addressed: static and dynamic faults tolerance to protect the device against manufacture- and run-time faults