Flip-flop with self correction
AssigneeSTMicroelectronics International N.V.
InventorAbhishek Jain
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A radiation hardened flip-flop includes a plurality of secondary flip-flops. Each secondary flip-flop includes both a data input terminal and an alternate data input terminal. Each secondary flip-flop also includes an enable terminal that selectively enables use of the alternate data input terminal. The radiation hardened flip-flop includes an error detection circuit that detects whether an error is present in one or more of the secondary flip-flops and provides an enable signal to the enable terminals indicating the presence or absence of an error in one or more of the secondary flip-flops.
Claims20
A device, comprising:
- a main flip-flop including:
- a main data input terminal;
- a main data output terminal;
- and
- a plurality of secondary flip-flops each having:
- a data input terminal coupled to the main data input terminal;
- a data output terminal;
- an alternate data input terminal;
- and
- an enable terminal configured to selectively enable the data input terminal or the data output terminal.
A method, comprising:
- receiving, at a main input terminal of a main flip-flop, a data value, the main flip-flop including a plurality of secondary flip-flops;
- providing the data value from the main input terminal to a respective data input terminal of each of a plurality of secondary flip-flops, each secondary flip-flop including an alternate data input terminal, an enable terminal, and an output terminal;
- receiving, at the alternate data input terminal of each secondary flip-flop, a respective alternate input data value;
- outputting, from the output terminal of each of the secondary flip-flops, a respective output data value to an error detection circuit;
- outputting, from the error detection circuit, a respective enable signal to the enable terminal of each secondary flip-flop;
- and
- for each secondary flip-flop, selectively passing to the output terminal of the secondary flip-flop either the data value or the alternate input data value based on the enable signal.
A method, comprising:
- providing an input data value of a main flip-flop to a data input terminal of each of a plurality of secondary flip-flops of the main flip-flop;
- receiving, at an alternate data input terminal of each of the secondary flip-flops, a respective alternate input data value;
- detecting, for each secondary flip-flop with an error detection circuit of the main flip-flop, whether an error state is present at the secondary flip-flop;
- and
- selectively outputting, for each secondary flip-flop, the alternate input data value as an output data value based on whether or not the error state is present.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.