Patent ID: 8856590

Claim:
A Reliable Compute Engine (RCE) of a system comprising: a first, second and at least a third redundant processing unit (RPU); and an arbitrator in communication with the first, second and third RPUs which sends a message for a corresponding time requiring a decision to the first, second and third RPUs, and receives the decisions made by the first, second and third RPUs, the RPUs only making the decision in response to receiving the message, the arbitrator accepting a first two matching decisions for the corresponding time received from the first, second and third RPUs, and sending the matching decision for the corresponding time to the system, the arbitrator disqualifying a decision received from one of the RPUs that does not match the decision received from the other two RPUs, the arbitrator has a first message processing unit (MPU) and a second MPU, the first MPU sends the message for the corresponding time to and receives the decisions for the corresponding time from the first, second and third RPUs, the second MPU sends subsequent messages for subsequent corresponding times to and receives decisions for the subsequent corresponding times from the first, second and third RPUs when the first MPU fails, each MPU is a communication interface which communicates with the system, the first RPU determines that the first MPU fails.