Course details

Fault Tolerant Systems

SOD Acad. year 2023/2024 Summer semester

Current academic year

Principles of fault tolerance, data and circuit structures, coding techniques. Codes for control and correction of information, information redundancy. Linear block codes: Hamming codes, oarity codes. Matrix description of codes. Principles of finite fields construction. Cyclic codes: principles and properties, CRC,  BCH and Reed-Solomon codes. Architecture of codes for Flash memories and CDROMs. Introduction to quantum computing, quantum-inspired wrror correction codes. Fault tolerance at VLSI level. Radiation safety and fault tolerance. Fault tolerant communication networks, distributed tolerant systems.

State doctoral exam - Final interview topics:

  1. Principe's, approaches and parameters of safe and fault tolerant systems.
  2. Parity codes, multidimensional parity codes, low-density parity codes, arithmentic codes, Raptor codes.
  3. Hamming codes, byte error correction codes, matrix notation of of coding and decoding.
  4. Cyclic codes, basic and fast CRC calculation.
  5. Galois finite field GF(n) construction, minimum  polynomials.
  6. Construction and applications of BCH and RS codes.
  7. Time redundancy, radiation tolerant circuits and systems.
  8. Fault tolerance in VLSI structures - memories and multiprocessors, reconfiguration, fault and error containment.
  9. Fault tolerance in communication systems.
  10. Software implemented fault tolerance, Byzantine agreement.

Guarantor

Drábek Vladimír, doc. Ing., CSc.

Language of instruction

Czech, English

Completion

Examination (written)

Time span

  • 39 hrs lectures

Assessment points

  • 100 pts final exam

Department

Department of Computer Systems (UPSY)

Learning objectives

To inform the students about different types of redundancy and its application for the design of computer systems being able to function correctly even under presence of faults and data errors. To give the students literary sources and principles of advanced topics in the area of fault and error tolerance for the choice of up-to-date research topics.

Skills and approaches to building fault tolerance using hardware and codes. To research new techniques and their applications.

To get know a novel approaches to ensure availability and safety of technical means.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Computer design and software tools.

Study literature

  • Nicolaidis M.: Soft Errors in Modern Electronic Systems, Spribger, 2011
  • Shokrollahi A., Luby M.: Raptor Codes, NOW Publishers, 2011
  • Szefer J.: Principles of Secure Processor Architecture Design, Morgan & Claypool, 2019

Syllabus of lectures

  1. FT design methodology, structures and techniques.
  2. Error control codes. Parity codes, multidimensional parity codes, arithmetic codes.
  3. Residue codes, Hamming codes, sparse parity codes. Raptor codes.
  4. Cyclic codes, Fire codes.
  5. Galois fields GF(n) and their construction, BCH and Reed-Solomon codes, byte error detection.
  6. Time redundancy, alternating logic.
  7. Reliability modeling, combinatorial models, MIL-HDBK-217. Markov reliability models.
  8. Safe systems.
  9. FT architectures.
  10. VLSI fault tolerance. Radiation fault tolerance. 
  11. FT in computer units, in memorie, in computer and communication systems.
  12. Fault tolerant and secure control systems.
  13. Distributed FT systems.
  14. Software implemented fault tolerance.

Progress assessment

Project topic selection and systematic consultatiobs.
Additional sessions after cunsultations wuth the lecturer.

Final exam, project submission and presentation.

 

Exam prerequisites

Project development, submission and presentation.

Course inclusion in study plans

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