CMPE 425 Fault-tolernat computing

CMPE 425 Fault-Tolerant Computing (Winter 2012)

Instructor

Dr. Jie Han

Office: W2-079, ECERF, phone: 492-1361

Email: jhan8 (and you know what follows), homepage

Office Hours: Tuesday, 2:00 - 3:00pm, or by appointments.

Course Information

Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:50am

Room: ETLE1 008

Website: eClass @ the University (Enrolled students will be able to access it by logging into the eClass@UofA.)

Prerequisite

EE280 Introduction to Digital Logic Design, EE340 Electronic Devices, EE387 Probability for Electrical and Computer Engineers, or consent of the Department.

Course Objectives

Students will learn the need and necessity to consider fault-tolerant design in nanoelectronic circuits and systems.

They will learn the fundamental concepts and techniques used in classical fault-tolerant systems.

They will also learn recent advances in fault-tolerant nanocomputing.

Course Description

Introduction to scaling CMOS and emerging nanoelectronic devices

Reliability and availability theory

Hardware fault-tolerance:

static and dynamic redundancy and repair

triple modular redundancy (TMR) and duplex systems

Defect tolerance in VLSI circuits

Soft errors and mitigation techniques

Error correcting codes and resilient disk systems

Fault-tolerance in nanocomputing

Textbooks

Fault-Tolerant Systems, by I. Koren and C.M. Krishna, Morgan Kaufmann, 2007.

+ Supplementary research papers.

Marking scheme:

Assignments: 10% (Approximately eight times)

Presentation: 10% (Project presentation: 20 min each, in the second half of March)

Midterm Exam: 30% (Tentatively scheduled in the last week of February)

Final Exam: 50% (Tentative date: April, 2012)

Academic integrity

The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behavior (online at www.governance.ualberta.ca ) and avoid any behavior which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offense. Academic dishonesty is a serious offense and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.

“Recording is permitted only with the prior written consent of the professor or if recording is part of an approved accommodation plan.”

Policy about course outlines can be found in §23.4(2) of the University Calendar.