Radiation hard and fault tolerant multicore processor and method for ionizing radiation environment

Abstract

A redundancy system in a fault tolerant computer comprises a multiple core processor which may support a real time operating system. The multiple core machine may be actual or virtual. Multiple identical instructions, e.g., three instructions, are executed redundantly so that the redundancy system can detect and recover from a single event upset (SEU). The instructions are also displaced in time. In one form, two non-consecutive instructions are run on one core which is virtualized into two cores. Alternatively, a second actual core may provide symmetric processing. The system prevents single event functional interrupts (SEFIs) from hanging up the processor. Each core may run a separate operating system. When a first core hangs up a first operating system, the second operating system takes over operation and the processor recovers. Embedded routines may store selected data variables in memory for later recovery and perform an SEFI 'self-test' routine.