Simulation and analysis of transient faults in digital circuits

To study the effect of transient faults in large digital circuits, a simulation tool called DYNAMO has been developed. It allows transient faults to be introduced in a circuit during a transient analysis so that its behavior can be observed and recorded. For efficiency, a dynamic mixed-mode simulation approach is employed whereby the representation of various portions of the circuit may switch between different levels of abstraction during the simulation, as dictated by the location of the transient fault and the resulting behavior of the circuit. Experiments have shown very encouraging results with significant speedups in CPU run times relative to the previous approach. The results of transient-fault simulation using the DYNAMO program on an avionic control microprocessor are also included