Reconfigurable Fault Tolerance for FPGAs

The invention allows a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or similar device to be efficiently reconfigured in whole or in part to provide higher capacity, non-redundant operation. The redundant device consists of functional units such as adders or multipliers, configuration memory for the functional units, a programmable routing method, configuration memory for the routing method, and various other features such as block RAM, I/O (random access memory, input/output) capability, dedicated carry logic, etc. The redundant device has three identical sets of functional units and routing resources and majority voters that correct errors. The configuration memory may or may not be redundant, depending on need. For example, SRAM-based FPGAs will need some type of radiation-tolerant configuration memory, or they will need triple-redundant configuration memory. Flash or anti-fuse devices will generally not need redundant configuration memory. Some means of loading and verifying the configuration memory is also required. These are all components of the pre-existing redundant FPGA.