Algorithm-based fault detection in prime factor FFT networks

A concurrent error detection (CED) scheme has been proposed by Jou and Abraham (1988)for a radix-2 FFT network. The method uses a coding scheme to ensure that all the modelled faults are detectable. The same method has been applied to the prime factor algorithm (PFA) FFT network. The results show that the CED scheme is applicable to multi-factor PFA networks and it is efficient, only, for large N. Since the PFA is a minimum multiplication algorithm, it is logical to adopt a minimum multiplication CED scheme. For this purpose, a suitable CED scheme has been developed such that the data coding is no longer needed which results in less hardware and time overheads. The new scheme provides a stage-by-stage error detection without causing time delay and additional roundoff noise. The hardware overhead is substantially reduced with improved error detection performance since the scheme needs to consider the roundoff error of only one stage instead of the entire FFT network.