Redundancy and the Detection of First Failures

The reliability problem is reviewed with respect to present and future requirements for military and commercial equipment. Methods of reliability improvement are reviewed and achievable levels of improvement are indicated for each method. Special emphasis is placed on redundancy, its benefits and disadvantages. The subject of Majority Vote is discussed along with failure detection circuitry capable of detecting first failures. The entire paper is intended to aid the circuit designer in his task of achieving higher reliability. The disclosures pertaining to Majority Vote and failure detection are considered advances in the state of the art.