Dynamic self-tuning soft-error-rate-discrimination for enhanced availability of enterprise computing systems
US7526683B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 1, 2005 |
| Grant date | Apr 28, 2009 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 29, 2026 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F11/008
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method for use in a computer system provides a dynamic, “self tuning” soft-error-rate-discrimination (SERD) method and apparatus. Specially designed SRAMs or other circuits are “tuned” in a manner that gives them extreme susceptibility to cosmic neutron events (soft errors), higher than that of the “regular” SRAM components, memory modules or other components in the computer system. One such specially designed SRAM is deployed per server. An interface algorithm continuously sends read/write traffic to the special SRAM to infer the soft error rate (SER), which is directly proportional to cosmic neutron flux. The inferred cosmic neutron flux rate is employed in a Poisson SPRT algorithmic approach that dynamically compensates the soft error discrimination sensitivity in accordance with the instantaneous neutron flux for all of the regular SRAM components in the server.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.