A Quantitative Approach to SoC Functional Safety Analysis

Automotive Systems-On-Chip are at the forefront of today's electronics research and development. This paper walks through a methodical approach of a safety analysis for a sample SoC design, starting from an estimated quantitative analysis of diagnostic coverage of the safety mechanisms. The paper then points out the limitations in that flow suggesting a quantitative approach towards a realistic result in diagnostic coverage through simulations. The differences in results between the two flows is then analyzed to suggest how the quantitative approach enhances the accuracy and confidence level of the safety metrics in a realistic and measurable way and, thus, avoids unnecessary or too complex safety mechanism implementations.