An autonomous reconfigurable cell array for fault-tolerant LSIs

The integration density achieved by the sub-0.l/spl mu/m ULSI causes a serious reliability problem. Redundancy is essentially the solution to the problem, but it is difficult to introduce redundancy to logic LSIs because of their functional complexity compared to memory LSIs. To overcome this difficulty, the autonomous reconfigurable cell array (ARCA) takes advantage ofthe redundancy, regularity, and programmability of reconfigurable logic circuits. It self-detects faults in real-time and automatically recovers while remaining on-line. Fault-tolerant LSIs can be obtained simply by mapping an objective circuit onto an ARCA in the same way as in conventional programmable LSIs.