Functional safety methodologies for automotive applications

Safety-critical automotive applications have stringent demands for functional safety and reliability. Traditionally, functional safety requirements have been managed by car manufacturers and system providers. However, with the increasing complexity of electronics involved, the responsibility of addressing functional safety is now propagating through the supply chain to semiconductor companies and design tool providers. This paper introduces some basic concepts of functional safety analysis and optimization and shows the bridge with the tradition design flow. Considerations are presented on how design methodologies are capturing and addressing the new safety metrics.