The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 26, 2007
Filed:
Oct. 18, 2005
Glenn C. Steiner, Los Altos, CA (US);
Glenn C. Steiner, Los Altos, CA (US);
Xilinx, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus to reduce the probability of programmable logic device (PLD) failure due to single event upset (SEU) of configuration memory. A first portion of configuration memory cells are initially programmed with configuration data, leaving a second portion of configuration memory cells that are un-programmed. The programmed and un-programmed configuration memory cells are grouped into voting groups, where each un-programmed configuration memory cell of each voting group is programmed with the identical configuration data as contained within the originally programmed configuration memory cell of each voting group. The logic values of each configuration memory cell of each voting group are monitored by voting circuits, which enforce a triple modular redundancy (TMR) validation policy. The logical validation results are then applied to control points to mitigate PLD configuration memory errors caused by anomalous events such as neutron induced SEUs.