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# IEEE Transactions on Reliability

## Filter Results

Displaying Results 1 - 25 of 26
• ### Editorials

Publication Year: 1995
| PDF (146 KB)
• ### Comment on: reliability modeling and performance of variable link-capacity networks

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):620 - 621
Cited by:  Papers (6)
| | PDF (166 KB)

The argues that the algorithm by Varshney, Joshi and Chang (see ibid., vol.48, p.378-82, 1994) is not correct. A counter example is presented in that focuses on the problem of this algorithm and the algorithm by Aggarwal (see ibid., vol.37, p.65-9, 1988). View full abstract»

• ### Using system reliability to determine supportability turnaround time at a repair depot

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):653 - 657
Cited by:  Papers (1)
| | PDF (360 KB)

This paper uses an expression for system reliability at a repair depot to construct a nonlinear, nonpolynomial function which is amenable to numerical analysis and has a zero equal to the supportability turnaround time (STAT) for a failed unit. System reliability is in terms of the constant failure rate for all units, number of spares on-hand at the time a unit fails, and projected repair completi... View full abstract»

• ### All opportunity-triggered replacement policy for multiple-unit systems

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):648 - 652
Cited by:  Papers (2)
| | PDF (368 KB)

A model is presented for a system which consists of n i.i.d units. Hazard rates of these units are increasing in time. A unit is replaced at failure or when the age of a unit exceeds T, whichever occurs first. When a unit is replaced, all the operating units with their age in the interval (T-w,T) are replaced. Both failure replacement and active replacement create the opportunities to replace othe... View full abstract»

• ### Optimal test-times for intermittent faults

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):645 - 647
Cited by:  Papers (3)
| | PDF (172 KB)

Su et al. (1978) considered continuous and repetitive tests for a continuous-parameter Markov model with intermittent faults. Periodic tests for intermittent faults are scheduled at times k·T (k=1, 2,...). This paper presents a simple algorithm to compute the optimal time to minimize the mean cost until detection when the test model is imperfect. First an upper bound is found for the optima... View full abstract»

• ### Optimal configuration of redundant real-time systems in the face of correlated failure

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):587 - 594
Cited by:  Papers (9)
| | PDF (564 KB)

Real-time computers are frequently used in harsh environments, such as space or industry. Lightning strikes, streams of elementary particles, and other manifestations of a harsh operating environment can cause transient failures in processors. Since the entire system is in the same environment, an especially severe disturbance can result in a momentary, correlated, failure of all the processors. T... View full abstract»

• ### Calculating exact top-event probabilities using Σ-Patrec

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):640 - 644
Cited by:  Papers (3)
| | PDF (464 KB)

This paper presents a method for calculating top-event exact probability. This responds to a surge in the application of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) techniques to ecological and weapon safety assessments. In these domains, basic event probabilities can be large; events characterizing human error and some natural phenomena are typical examples. The method described combines the ΣII al... View full abstract»

• ### Numerical methods for reliability evaluation of Markov closed fault-tolerant systems

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):694 - 704
Cited by:  Papers (5)
| | PDF (980 KB)

This paper compares three numerical methods for reliability calculation of Markov, closed, fault-tolerant systems which give rise to continuous-time, time-homogeneous, finite-state, acyclic Markov chains. The authors consider a modified version of Jensen's method (a probabilistic method, also known as uniformization or randomization), a new version of ACE (acyclic Markov chain evaluator) algorithm... View full abstract»

• ### Improved task-allocation algorithms to maximize reliability of redundant distributed computing systems

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):575 - 586
Cited by:  Papers (14)
| | PDF (820 KB)

This paper considers the problem of finding an optimal and sub-optimal task-allocation (assign the processing node for each module of a task or program) in redundant distributed computing systems, with the goal of maximizing system-reliability (probability that the system completes the entire task successfully). Finding an optimal task-allocation is NP-hard in the strong sense. An efficient algori... View full abstract»

• ### Using multi-stage and stratified sampling for inferring fault-coverage probabilities

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):632 - 639
Cited by:  Papers (12)
| | PDF (696 KB)

Development of fault-tolerant computing systems requires accurate reliability modeling. Analytic, simulation, and hybrid models are commonly used for obtaining reliability measures. These measures are functions of component failure rates and fault-coverage (probabilities). Coverage provides information about the fault and error detection, isolation, and system recovery capabilities. This parameter... View full abstract»

• ### Fault severity in models of fault-correction activity

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):666 - 671
Cited by:  Papers (1)
| | PDF (632 KB)

This study applies canonical correlation analysis to investigate the relationships between source-code (SC) complexity and fault-correction (FC) activity. Product and process measures collected during the development of a commercial real-time product provide the data for this analysis. Sets of variables represent SC complexity and FC activity. A canonical model represents the relationships between... View full abstract»

• ### Optimal algorithms for synthesis of reliable application-specific heterogeneous multiprocessors

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):603 - 613
Cited by:  Papers (8)  |  Patents (9)
| | PDF (956 KB)

Fast and optimally-reliable application-specific multiprocessor-synthesis is critical in system-level design, especially in medical, automotive, space, and military applications. Previous work in multiprocessor-synthesis and task-allocation for performance and reliability requires exponential time, and therefore, is useful only for small examples. We present the first deterministic and provably-op... View full abstract»

• ### Electrolytic models for metallic electromigration failure mechanisms

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):539 - 549
Cited by:  Papers (4)  |  Patents (1)
| | PDF (2852 KB)

Metallic electromigration is the movement of metallic material across a nonmetallic medium, under the influence of an electric field. It is increasingly important in the performance and reliability of electronic systems as an underling cause of functional failures in electrical and electronic components. This tutorial discusses the characteristics of the various electromigration mechanisms, with p... View full abstract»

• ### Symmetric relations in multistate systems

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):689 - 693
Cited by:  Papers (9)
| | PDF (348 KB)

This paper: (1) derives the upper bound for the number of critical upper (lower) vectors to level j of a monotone increasing multi-state system; (2) discusses the symmetric relations among the components; (3) gives several theoretical conclusions; and (4) proposes a simplified form for the structure function of the multi-state systems with symmetric relations View full abstract»

• ### Mean time to first failure of repairable systems with one cold spare

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):567 - 574
Cited by:  Papers (2)
| | PDF (500 KB)

A general (nonMarkov) 1-out-of-2:G system with statistically-identical components, repair, and cold standby is reviewed. Coverage is considered, viz, failures of the switching mechanism for activating the spare. The explicit derivation of the mean time-to-first-failure and its in-depth discussion appear to be new. The state transition graph and the Petri net both show the way to general (n-1)-out-... View full abstract»

• ### Unified approach to synchronous and asynchronous approximate agreement in the presence of hybrid faults

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):622 - 631
Cited by:  Papers (1)
| | PDF (944 KB)

An important problem in fault-tolerant distributed computer systems is maintaining agreement between nonfaulty processes in the presence of undiagnosed faults. Approximate agreement defines a condition in which it is not necessary for the agreed values to be numerically identical. Rather, processes need only agree with each other to within a predefined numerical tolerance. Convergent voting algori... View full abstract»

• ### Use of failure-intensity models in the software-validation phase for telecommunications

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):658 - 665
Cited by:  Papers (1)
| | PDF (636 KB)

Telephone switching systems require the use of more complex and bulky software. It is therefore important for France Telecom to take an interest in software quality before the operational phase. Trend tests show the evolution of detected failures during the validation phase. When these tests show a tendency towards improvement, we can apply software-reliability growth models. This paper describes ... View full abstract»

• ### A recursive variance-reduction algorithm for estimating communication-network reliability

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):595 - 602
Cited by:  Papers (16)
| | PDF (604 KB)

In evaluating the capacity of a communication network architecture to resist possible faults of some of its components, several reliability metrics are used. This paper considers the 𝒦-terminal unreliability measure. The exact evaluation of this parameter is, in general, very costly since it is in the NP-hard family. An alternative to exact evaluation is to estimate it using Monte Carlo simul... View full abstract»

• ### Domination of k-out-of-n systems

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):705 - 708
Cited by:  Papers (5)
| | PDF (312 KB)

The main objective of this paper is to derive a formula for the signed domination of k-out-of-n systems. The behavior of such systems is investigated when pivotal decomposition is applied to them. The nature of the two resulting subsystems has been examined; the signed domination theorem has been extended to those systems and used as a proving tool for the main objective. A closed formula is prese... View full abstract»

• ### An empirical model of enhancement-induced defect activity in software

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):672 - 676
Cited by:  Papers (1)
| | PDF (528 KB)

This study exploits the relationship between functional enhancement (FE) activity and defect distribution to produce a model for predicting FE induced defect activity. We achieve this in 2 steps: (1) apply canonical correlation analysis to model the relationship between a set of FE activity indicators and a set of defect activity indicators; this analysis isolates 1 dimension of this relationship ... View full abstract»

• ### Component redundancy vs system redundancy in the hazard rate ordering

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):614 - 619
Cited by:  Papers (9)
| | PDF (416 KB)

Design engineers are well aware of the stochastic result which says that (under the appropriate assumptions) redundancy at the component level is superior to redundancy at the system level. Given the importance of the hazard rate in reliability and life testing, we investigate to what extent this principle holds for the stronger stochastic ordering, viz, hazard rate ordering. Surprisingly, this do... View full abstract»

• ### Reliability problems of polysilicon/Al contacts due to grain-boundary enhanced thermomigration effects

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):550 - 555
Cited by:  Papers (1)
| | PDF (836 KB)

This paper presents results of a reliability study of n+polysilicon/Al contacts. The contact resistance of this structure ranged dramatically from sample to sample, and in some cases the contact resistance was extremely large (e.g. 80 kΩ.μm2). In addition, important changes in contact resistance were caused by temperature stress. This variation in contact resistance poses a ser... View full abstract»

• ### The impact of software enhancement on software reliability

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):677 - 682
Cited by:  Papers (8)  |  Patents (1)
| | PDF (564 KB)

This paper exploits the relationship between functional-enhancement (FE) activity and the distribution of software defects' to develop a discriminant model that identifies high-risk program modules, FE activity' and defect data captured during the FE of a commercial programming language processing utility' serve to fit and test the predictive quality of this model. The model misclassification r... View full abstract»

• ### Simulating IC reliability with emphasis on process-flaw related early failures

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):556 - 561
Cited by:  Papers (1)  |  Patents (3)
| | PDF (620 KB)

A Monte-Carlo reliability simulator for integrated circuits (IC) that incorporates the effects of process flaws, material properties, the mask layout, and use conditions is presented. The mask layout is decomposed into distinct objects, such as contiguous metal runs, vias, contacts, and gate-oxides, for which user-defined distributions are used for determining the failure probability. These distri... View full abstract»

• ### Dynamic reliability analysis of coherent multistate systems

Publication Year: 1995, Page(s):683 - 688
Cited by:  Papers (27)
| | PDF (440 KB)

This paper generalizes 2-state (binary-state) reliability parameters R(t), F(t), λ(t), and mean-time to-failure' to multi-state reliability parameters `R(t,i), G(t,i), λ(t,i), mean-life-span-at-specified-performance-level(i), for each state'. By using these generalized reliability parameters, multi-state reliability dynamic analysis can be transformed to a set of 2-state reliability... View full abstract»

## Aims & Scope

IEEE Transactions on Reliability is concerned with the problems involved in attaining reliability, maintaining it through the life of the system or device, and measuring it.

Full Aims & Scope

## Meet Our Editors

Editor-in-Chief
W. Eric Wong
University of Texas at Dallas
Advanced Res Ctr for Software Testing and Quality Assurance

ewong@utdallas.edu