Fundamentals Of Semiconductor ISO 26262 Certification: People, Process And Product


Written by an ISO 26262 working group member who contributed to the new ISO 26262:2018 Part 11, this paper dispels myths about ISO 26262 certification and seeks to enhance the reader’s knowledge regarding all aspects of the ISO 26262 standard. Provides information on employee training and certification courses, functional safety consulting services, and accredited certification by exida, T... » read more

Safety Critical Design In Automotive


Shiv Chonnad, hardware engineer at Synopsys, examines how to design chips for safety-critical applications such as automotive and ensure they work as planned and in accordance with ISO 26262 and the various ASIL levels. This includes how to find faults at both a chip and a system level. https://youtu.be/3dL4ZuSe5Ls » read more

Auto Reliability At The System Level


Carmakers and chipmakers are approaching autonomous vehicle design from very different perspectives, and while they both talk about safety and reliability as the end goals, they have widely divergent ideas about how to get there. All of this is just beginning to come into focus as carmakers vie for leadership in the autonomous vehicle space, and much of it appears to hinge on the definition ... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Synopsys announced several new products: a new test family, a physical verification solution, and a software library for neural net SoCs. TestMAX, the new family of test products, includes soft error analysis and X-tolerant logic BIST for automotive test and functional safety requirements. TestMAX enables test through functional high-speed interfaces and supports early validation of DFT logi... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP OneSpin Solutions debuted the Hardware Metric Calculation (HMC) App, which uses automatically extracted design information to calculate key hardware metrics to comply with functional safety standards. In particular, it focuses on automotive and autonomous driving SoCs needing to meet the highest functional safety requirements defined by the ISO 26262 standard. The HMC App calcul... » read more

Reliability Becomes The Top Concern In Automotive


Reliability is emerging as the top priority across the hottest growth markets for semiconductors, including automotive, industrial and cloud-based computing. But instead of replacing chips every two to four years, some of those devices are expected to survive for up to 20 years, even with higher usage in sometimes extreme environmental conditions. This shift in priorities has broad ramificat... » read more

Week in Review: Design, Low Power


The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $35 million for 12 projects involving ultra-efficient power management. Called Arpa-E, the program encouraged participants to use medium-voltage electricity in new ways with real-world applications, such as industry, transportation and the grid. The top two award winners were Eaton Corp. (Arden, NC) for its DC wide-bandgap static circuit breaker, ... » read more

ISO 26262:2018, 2nd Edition: What Changes?


If you’re involved somehow in design for automotive electronics, you probably have more than a cursory understanding of the ISO 26262 standard. What your organization is working from is most likely the 2011 definition. The most recent update is formally known as ISO 26262:2018, less formally as ISO 26262 2nd Edition. Figure 1. Overview of the ISO 26262:2018 series of standards (Source IS... » read more

Mostly Upbeat Outlook For Chips


2019 has started with cautious optimism for the semiconductor industry, despite dark clouds that dot the horizon. Market segments such as cryptocurrencies and virtual reality are not living up to expectations, the market for smart phones appears to be saturated, and DRAM prices are dropping, leading to cut-backs in capital expenditures. EDA companies are talking about sales to China being pu... » read more

AI’s Growing Impact On Chip Design


Synopsys chairman and co-CEO Aart de Geus sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about the rapid infusion of AI into electronics, how that is changing chip design and the software that runs on those chips. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: We're dealing with a bunch of new markets, more customized design, and AI seems to be creeping into everything. How does this i... » read more

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