Why Nano-DSP Will be Fan-In Constrained

This paper studies for the first time the performance of von-Neumann multiplexing (vN-MUX) when stuck at fault model is considered. In this study, vN-MUX is applied to majority (MAJ) gates of small fan-ins (Δ = 3, 5, 7, and 9), and respectively the corresponding redundancy factors (R = 6, 10, 14, and 18). This study is extremely important for a deeper understanding of vN-MUX, especially when considering the unreliable behavior of future nano-devices. The analysis confirms and enhances on well-known theoretical results, and is exact as being obtained using Bayesian network. Finally, the extension to device level will allow us to characterize vN-MUX with respect device failures for the first time ever. The results are very timely and are explaining a strange (non-linear) behavior of vN-MUX that was first reported two years ago (based on extensive Monte Carlo simulations).