Efficient Functional Safety Method for Gate-Level Fine-Grained Digital Circuits with ISO-26262

In applications such as automotive chips that require high service responsiveness, ensuring the functional safety of electronic systems is crucial. The prevalent method involves conducting Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) and fault simulation at the design verification stage to assess safety levels. However, existing approaches primarily analyze at the register transfer level (RTL), which does not reflect the actual structure of chips where faults occur at the gate level, resulting in inaccuracies. This is due to the slower analysis speed at the gate level, making it challenging to balance precision with speed, thus defaulting to RTL for simulation. To address these challenges, we propose an innovative method for functional safety analysis and verification that integrates advanced gate-level fault simulation technology with FMEDA techniques. Our approach is based on an enhanced gate-level FMEDA framework, enabling deeper and more accurate safety performance analysis. Through experimental verification, our method has proven to be over 3 times faster than commercial tools in fault simulation, significantly enhancing the reliability and speed of the functional safety process. Ultimately, our research provides rapid and precise safety analysis and verification at the gate level for high-risk applications like automotive chips, offering robust technical support and practical guidelines for advancing functional safety technology in this sector.