Reliability evaluation of heterogeneous systems-on-chip for automotive ECUs

Automotive systems embed an increasing number of heterogeneous devices and architectures that lead the effective reliability analysis a major challenge. With the advent of integrated Virtual Environment, complex system design and simulation have been made possible thanks to the integration of various simulator engines within a unique development platform. In this paper we develop a Fault Injection tool able to inject Single Event Upsets (SEUs) using a Virtual Prototype simulation environment. The developed method results powerful and effective to observe the overall system dependability and characterize the fault tolerance capability of any type of SW/HW module included in the system. Experimental results obtained with an analysis of a gear-shift automotive application demonstrated the feasibility of the developed method.