Using Configurable Bit-Width Voters to Mask Multiple Errors in Integrated Circuits

N-Modular Redundancy (NMR) with majority voters has been widely used to increase reliability. While bit-voters perform bit by bit comparisons, which are the most basic and fast voting scheme, word-voters consider all bits in parallel to determine the final output, increasing data integrity but likewise the area. This paper proposes to merge the advantages of both aforementioned voters and fill the gap in between the existent designs, by grouping voters into a structure of configurable sets of bits (i.e.: The proposed system is composed of a set of X voters of Y bits, where X and Y are configurable). We explore the design space by considering scenarios with multiple errors and project restrictions such as area, delay, error rate, number of modules, and probability of corrupt outputs. We will show that there are many cases where the proposed voter fits the aforementioned restrictions better than the others.