ECE 412 Fault-Tolerant Computing (Winter 2024)

University of Alberta

Faculty of Engineering

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Instructor

Dr. Jie Han

Office: 13-358, Donadeo Innovation Center for Engineering, phone: 492-1361

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

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

Course Information

Lectures: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 1:00 - 1:50 pm

Room: See Beartracks

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

Prerequisite

ECE 210 Introduction to Digital Logic Design and ECE 342 Probability for Electrical and Computer Engineers, or consent of the Department.

Course Objectives

Students will learn the need, necessity and importance of fault tolerance in electronic circuits and engineering systems.

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

Students will also learn how to analyze and evaluate a fault-tolerant design, as well as recent advances in error-resilient computing.

Course Description

Basic concepts and definitions

Reliability and availability theory

Hardware fault-tolerance:

    static and dynamic redundancy and repair

    triple modular redundancy (TMR) and duplex systems

    Poisson processes and Markov models

Reliability evaluation of logic circuits

Soft errors and mitigation techniques

Error correcting codes and resilient disk systems

Reliability in neural networks

Defect tolerance in VLSI circuits (optional)

Fault-tolerance in nanocomputing (optional)

Textbooks

Fault-Tolerant Systems, by I. Koren and C.M. Krishna, Morgan Kaufmann, Second Edition, 2020.

+ Supplementary research papers.

Marking scheme:

Assignments:      15%      (Approximately seven times)

Presentation:      15%      (Project presentation: 15/8 min each, in the first half of April)

Midterm Exam:  25%      (Tentatively scheduled in the first week of March)

Final Exam:         45%      (Tentative date: mid or late April)

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.

© Jie Han, 2024.