A two-dimensional RC network topology for fault-tolerant design of analog circuits

This paper proposes a novel one-port passive circuit topology consisting of a two-dimensional network of resistors and capacitors, which can be used as a fault-tolerant building block for analog circuit design. Through an analytical procedure, the network is shown to follow simple first-order admittance dynamics. A Monte Carlo method is employed to describe the effect of simultaneous faults (short or open circuit) in random network elements in terms of confidence bounds in the frequency-domain admittance profile. Faults in 10% of the elements resulted in only minor changes of the frequency response (up to 3.9 dB in magnitude and 12.5(degrees) in phase in 95% of the cases). An example is presented to illustrate the use of the proposed RC network in the fault-tolerant design of a low-pass filter.