In this paper a five phase fault tolerant converter is proposed for permanent magnet (PM) drives. The proposed configuration is an extension of conventional three phase double switch redundant topologies. In contrast to three phase systems,the proposed configuration has more flexibility and reliability regarding simultaneous faults in more than one phase. Different faulty cases are explained. Optimal reconfiguration strategies are derived under several faulty conditions. Design criteria are defined and a comparative loss analysis is conducted on converter behavior under various conditions. Simulation results are included to validate the theory.