Time For FMEDA Reuse?


How do designers quantify safety in electronic systems? Through one or more tables called Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis – FMEDA. In fact, an FMEDA does not have to be a table; it could be manifested in scripts or some other form, but a table is the easiest way to think of this information. Think of an FMEDA for an IP, as the concept extends easily to a system-on-chip (SoC). T... » read more

Is A Guestimate Good Enough For Obtaining Failure Mode Distribution?


SoCs targeting automotive applications are required to meet certain safety and quality standards as described in ISO 26262. A quantitative approach to safety analysis involves performing Failure Mode Effects and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA). FMEDA is a systematic quantitative analysis technique to obtain subsystem/product level failure rates, failure modes and diagnostic capabilities of systemat... » read more

GPIO IP For Automotive Functional Safety


By Nidhi Bhasin, Shivakumar Chonnad, Vladimir Litovtchenko, and Sowjanya Syamala The prevalence and complexity of electronics and software (EE systems) in automotive applications are increasing with every new generation of car. The critical functions within the system on a chip (SoC) involve hardware and software that perform automotive-related signal communication at high data rates to and ... » read more

ISO 26262 – Law Or Framework?


The ISO 26262 standard is a weighty series of documents that many believe has all the force of law or regulation; however, it is not a dictate. It is an agreement on best practices for participants in the vehicle value chain to follow to ensure safety as far as the industry understands it today. There is no monetary fine if the standard is not followed, though it will be difficult to sell autom... » read more

Making Autonomous Driver Chips Safe From The Top Down


It’s easy to think of electronics applications in which the chips must be ultra-safe: nuclear power plants, aircraft, weapons systems, and implanted medical devices. Autonomous vehicles, capable of self-driving with only the electronics in control, are rapidly emerging to join this list. These vehicles must be “safe” in all the usual colloquial ways, but they also must meet a very specifi... » read more

Making Vehicle Electronics Safe With ISO 26262 Compliance


There are many semiconductor applications with high demands on safety, including spaceborne systems, nuclear power plants, and embedded medical devices. But automotive electronics are probably foremost in most peoples’ minds when they think about safe operation under all conditions. The advent of fully autonomous vehicles is responsible for much of this attention. Like other safety-critical a... » read more

Change Management With Impact Analysis During Safety-Critical IP And SoC Development


Standards like ISO 26262 provide guidance to mitigate safety risks by defining safety analyses requirements and processes. The standard describes Change Management as a way to analyze and control changes in safety-related work products, items, and elements throughout the safety lifecycle. Impact analysis, a part of the Change Management process, is a systematic approach for evaluating changes t... » read more

Mitigating The Effects Of Radiation On Advanced Automotive ICs


The safety considerations in an automotive IC application have similarities to what is seen in other safety critical industries, such as the avionics, space, and industrial sectors. ISO 26262 is the state-of-the-art safety standard guiding the safety activities and work products required for electronics deployed in an automotive system. ISO 26262 requires that a design be protected from the eff... » read more

Building A Safety Verification Flow


Sal Alvarez, senior manager of application engineering at Synopsys, explains how safety verification differs from functional verification, what changes with failure mode effects analysis, and how to determine and verify the effectiveness of safety features. » read more

Automating Failure Mode Analysis For Automotive Safety


By Chuck Battikha and Doug Smith If you’ve ever had to create a Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA), you know how difficult and painstaking a task it can be. But FMEDAs are essential in ensuring that your SoCs satisfy ISO 26262 functional safety analysis requirements for automotive designs and for demonstrating that your design is indeed safe. Because of the intens... » read more

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