JPS59123056A - Automatic switching system of redundant system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten the breakdown period by switching automatically faulty one of plural function parts to a redundant function part. CONSTITUTION:A circuit substrate 12 for redundancy having equivalent function is provided to the substrates 11A-11C having equivalent functions. The address data allotted to these substrates are stored in a scramble memory 13, and an access is given to the memory 13 under the control of a CPU14 to read the address data. Then circuit substrates 11A-11C and 12 are selected based on those address data, and at the same time the data are supplied to these substrates. Each output of substrates 11A-11C is compared with the output of the substrate 12 to diagnose whether substrates 11A-11C and 12 are normal or not respectively. If a fault arises, the address data in the memory 13 is updated under the control of the CPU14 to exchange faulty one of substrate 11A-11C with the substrate 12.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a system equipped with a redundant function, and provides a redundant function automatic switching system that automatically switches to the redundant function when another function fails. Regarding.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

A system in which a main circuit and a sub-circuit having the same function are provided in a certain functional part of the system and automatically switches to the sub-circuit when the main circuit fails is found in large electronic computers.

However, if one of the multiple identical circuit blocks or functional boards in a system fails, there is no conventional system that can automatically switch it to another redundant circuit block or functional board. It has not been developed. Furthermore, some conventional systems have a function of detecting and notifying a failure state in such a case. However, if the system simply reports the discovery of a failure, the time required for repair is long because the failure repair is performed manually, resulting in extended system downtime.

By the way, when the system is a production device for measuring the characteristics of semiconductor devices, as production processes become more automated and labor-saving, the failure of just one production device has an extremely large impact on the entire production system. For this reason, it is strongly desired that each device be highly reliable and have as short a downtime as possible in the event of a failure.

[Purpose of the invention]

This invention was made in consideration of the above-mentioned circumstances, and its purpose is to automatically designate it as a redundant functional section when any one of a plurality of functional sections having equivalent functions fails. An object of the present invention is to provide a redundant function automatic switching system that reduces downtime by switching to a redundant function.

[Summary of the invention]

According to the present invention, a redundancy function section having an equivalent function to each of a plurality of function sections having equivalent functions is provided, and addresses are assigned to each of these function sections and the redundancy function section. Preliminarily storing address data in a scramble memory, accessing the scramble memory under the control of the CPU to read out the address data, selecting the functional unit and the redundant functional unit based on the address data, and supplying the data; In addition, by comparing the output of each of the above functional units with the output of the redundant functional unit, it is possible to diagnose whether each functional unit is normal or malfunctioning. A redundant function automatic switching system is provided in which a faulty functional unit is switched to a redundant functional unit by updating the address data in the scramble memory.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a redundant function automatic switching system according to the present invention.

In the figure, IIk to IIC are circuit boards with functions equivalent to each other, and 12 is each of these boards 11A to 11A.
Each of these boards 111 to IIC has functions equivalent to 11C.
This is a redundant circuit board that is used as a replacement if one of them fails. Each of the boards 111 to IIC and 12 is assigned an address in advance, and this address data is stored in the scramble memory 13. This scramble memory 13
is addressed under the control of the CPU 14, and the address data read from within the address area is transmitted to the address bus 15. Based on the address data on this address nozzle 5, each board 11 is
1 to IIC, 12 are selected.

On the other hand, data output from the CPU 14 is supplied in parallel to each of the boards 11A to 11C 112 via a data bus 16.

Output data from each of the boards 111-IIC is supplied to one input terminal of each of the data multiplexers J7A-17C. Each of the above data multiplexers 1flA to 17
The output data from the redundant board 12 is supplied in parallel to the other input terminal of each of the redundant circuit boards 12. These data multiplexers 17A and J7C select and output one of the data supplied to their two input terminals, and the selection operation is performed based on a control signal from the data selection control circuit 18. Furthermore, the data selection control circuit 18 is connected to the CPU 14 via the data bus 16.
The operation of this circuit 18 is controlled by the CPU.
This is performed based on the output data of No. 14.

The output data from each of the data multiplexers Z7A to 17C is supplied to other circuit sections, and is also supplied to the OR circuit 1.
9 to the data comparison circuit 20. This data comparison circuit 20 performs data comparison based on the data of the data bus 16 and diagnoses whether or not each board 11A to IIC is malfunctioning. The data is supplied to the CPU 14 via the CPU 14.

In the circuit having the above configuration, each circuit board 111 to 11
Address data as shown in FIG. 2 is previously assigned to C and 12. Correspondingly, address data "1" to "4" are stored in advance in the memory address area of addresses 1301 to 4 of the scramble memory 1301, as shown in FIG. Now, during normal operation, the CPU 14 accesses addresses 1 to 3 of the scramble memory 13 and writes Ill, r2J.

Read address data of "3". Therefore, in this case, one of the circuit boards 111 to IIC is selected, and data from the CPU 14 is supplied to the selected circuit board 1 via the data bus 16. on the other hand,
During normal operation, each data multiplexer J7A-17C selects the output data from each circuit board 111-IIC, so the output data from each circuit board 11-IIC is sent via each data multiplexer 17A-17C. and is supplied to other circuit sections. Therefore, during normal operation, the redundant circuit board 12 is not selected.

Next, if another circuit section that currently receives output data from each of the circuit boards 11A to IIC malfunctions due to a failure in any one of the circuit boards JZA to IIC, an interrupt signal IRQ obtained at the time of detection of this malfunction will be sent to the CPU. 14. By inputting this signal IRQ, p CPU I4
First, a fault diagnosis program stored in advance is executed to detect a circuit board in which a fault has occurred. This detection is performed as follows. First, the CPU 14 sequentially accesses addresses 1 to 3 of the scramble memory 13 and reads "1" to "3" in the scramble memory 13.
3" address data - is read. Therefore, the circuit boards 11A to IIC are sequentially selected according to the specific address data. On the other hand, the CPU 14 sequentially supplies data via the data bus 16 to each of the selected circuit boards 111 to 11C. The data selection control circuit 18 then
The data multiplexers J7A to 17C are controlled so that when the circuit boards 11A to IIC are selected, the respective output data of K are selected. Therefore in this case,
The output data from each circuit board JJA to IIC is sequentially sent to the data comparison circuit zoK via an OR circuit 19. Further, when the CPU Z 4 sequentially accesses addresses 1 to 3 of the scramble memory 13, it accesses the address 1304 of the scramble memory 1304 after each access and supplies IfC data to the data bus 16. , Therefore, in this case, the redundant circuit board 12 is selected, and this board 12 is equipped with C.
Data from PU 14 is provided. On the other hand, at this time, the -data selection control circuit 18 controls each of the data multiplexers J7A to 17C so that the output data from the redundant circuit board 12 is selected. For this reason, the data comparison circuit 2o includes each circuit board 11A to IIC.
The output data of the circuit board 12 for redundancy is inserted between the output data of the redundant circuit boards 12 and is inputted sequentially. The next Kf''-event comparison circuit 20 uses the output data from the redundant circuit board 12 as reference data, and uses this data and each circuit board 111 to
By comparing the output data of each IIC, a failure diagnosis of each circuit board 11A to IIC is performed. When data corresponding to this diagnostic result is input to CPUJn&C via the data bus 16, the CPU 14 then updates the address data in the scramble memory 13 in accordance with this data. For example, during the above diagnosis, the circuit board 1
If a failure occurs in 1B, after this, CPU f4
The scramble memo 1713 (D22 address data is rewritten to the address data "4" previously assigned to the redundant circuit board 12, and no address data is written to the 4th address. Therefore, after the update The contents of the scramble memory 13 are as shown in FIG.

When the update of the address data in the scramble memory 13 is completed, the execution of the fault diagnosis program is stopped.

Then, when the CPU next accesses address 2 of the scramble memory 13, the address data read at this time is "4", and the circuit board 11B where the failure has occurred.
A redundant circuit board 12 is then selected instead.

That is, when the address data in the scramble memory 13 is updated, the faulty circuit board 11B is automatically switched to the redundant circuit board 12. After that, correct data is output to other circuit sections via data multiplexers 17A to 17C. Furthermore, if a circuit board other than the circuit board 11B is diagnosed as having a fault during fault diagnosis, the address data at the corresponding address in the scramble memory 13 is allocated in advance to the redundant circuit board 12. The data is rewritten to "4". Therefore, even if any one of the circuit boards 11A to IIC fails, it is automatically switched to the redundant circuit board 12.

In this way, according to the above embodiment, the circuit boards 11A to II
If one of the circuit boards C fails, the circuit board in which the failure occurred is automatically switched to the redundant circuit board 12, which greatly reduces downtime compared to the case where switching is done manually. can be realized.

It should be noted that the present invention is limited to the above-mentioned embodiment and is not limited to the above embodiment, and various modifications are possible. For example, in the above embodiment, only one redundant circuit board is provided, but one or more circuit boards may be provided, and circuit boards other than redundant circuit boards are also limited to three, 111 to IIC. It's not something you can do. Further, in the above embodiment, each circuit board 11A~
The case where the output data from the IIC is supplied to other circuit sections has been explained, but as shown in FIG.
1 to IIC output data to each other circuit board 21 to 21
When supplying the output data of 21C to other circuit parts to this board 21, each circuit board 21A to 21
A redundant circuit board 22 is provided for C, and the circuit board 21
Even if the circuit board 22 is automatically switched in the event of a failure of A-21C, in FIG. 5, 23 is data for selecting one of the output data of data multiplexers J7A-17C. multiplexer, 2
48 to 24C are data multiplexers for selecting one of the output data of the circuit boards 21A to 21c and the output data of the redundant circuit board 22; 13 is a data multiplexer for selecting one of the output data of the circuit boards 21A to 21c; IC1B is compatible with the data selection control circuit 18JIC. In addition, the circuit board 11, 12, 21, 22 D4C is compatible with the above data selection control circuit 18JIC.
For example, circuit blocks with specific functions may be used.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, if one of a plurality of functions having equivalent functions fails, it is automatically switched to a redundant functional unit, thereby reducing downtime. A system for automatically switching redundant functions can be provided.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.
2 to 4 are state diagrams for explaining the above-mentioned embodiment, respectively, and FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of another embodiment of the present invention. 11.21...Circuit board, 12.22...Redundant circuit board, 13, 13', Yukura, Puya memory,
14...CPU, 75...Address bus, 16...
・Data bus, 17, 23. 24... Data multiplexer, 18. 18... Data selection control circuit, 19.
・, OR circuit, 2o... data comparison circuit. Applicant's agent: Patent attorney Takehiko Dosu Figure 1. @2 Figure 3 Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Claims] A plurality of functional units having equivalent functions, a redundancy functional unit having further equivalent functions to each of the plurality of functional units, and an address ratio for the above functional units and redundancy functional units. an address data storage means for storing address data; a control means for accessing the address data storage means to read out the address data; and based on the address data, selecting the functional section and the redundancy functional section and supplying the data; Output selection means for selecting between the outputs of each functional section and the outputs of the redundant functional section, a fault diagnosis means for diagnosing a failure by detecting the outputs of the respective functional sections, and the diagnostic results of this means and address data updating means for updating the address data in the address data storage means in accordance with the redundant function automatic switching system.