New methods for evaluating the impact of single event transients in VDSM ICs

Abstract

This work considers a SET (single event transient) fault simulation technique to evaluate the probability that a transient pulse, born in the combinational logic, may be latched in a storage cell. Fault injection procedures and a fast fault simulation algorithm for transient faults were implemented around an event driven simulator. A statistical analysis was implemented to organize data sampled from simulations. The benchmarks show that the proposed algorithm is capable of injecting and simulating a large number of transient faults in complex designs. Also specific optimizations have been carried out, thus greatly reducing the simulation time compared to a sequential fault simulation approach.