Design for Self-Repair Systm by Embeded Self-Detection Circuit

This paper proposes an efficient structure which is able to perform self-detection and self-repair for faults in a digital system by imitating the structure of living beings. The self-repair system is composed of artificial cells, which have homogeneous structures in the two-dimension, and spare cells. An artificial cell is composed of a logic block based on multiplexers, and a genome block, which controls the logic block. The cell is designed using DCVSL (differential cascode voltage switch logic) structure to self-detect faults. If a fault occurs in an artificial cell, it is self-detected by the DCVSL. Then the artificial cells which belong to the column are disabled and reconfigured using both neighbour cells and spare cells to be repaired. A self-repairable 2-bit up/down counter has been fabricated using Hynix technology with core area and verified through the circuit simulation and chip test.