Showing papers by "Peter Varman published in 1982"

Fault-tolerant wafer-scale architectures for VLSI

Abstract: The basic problem which limits both yields and chip sizes is the fact that circuits created using current design techniques will not function correctly in the presence of even a single flaw of sufficient size anywhere on the chip. In this work we examine the problem of constructing chips up to the size of a wafer which operate correctly despite the presence of such flaws. This can be accomplished by building on the wafer a nearest-neighbor network of small, independent, asynchronously communicating modules. A specific algorithm to be performed by the wafer is then mapped onto a fault-free subgraph of the network. We are interested in algorithms which map naturally onto a linear array of identical processors. Construction of fault-tolerant implementations of these algorithms is addressed in two contexts. First we consider the general problem of finding a fault-free subgraph of the host network which is isomorphic to the linear array required to solve a problem. We then examine ways to tailor a specific, known algorithm to the fault-tolerant context.