Functional Safety Validation Tool for Circuit Vulnerability Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current electronic design automation methods lack effective tools for identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities in integrated circuit designs, particularly in safety-critical systems, which can lead to functional failures and safety risks.
Innovation Solution
A functional safety validation tool that identifies vulnerable sections in electronic systems, inserts safety circuitry such as parity generation, error-correcting code, and state machine protocol check circuitry, and generates a logical equivalency check script to verify the modified circuit design, ensuring detection and correction of faults.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If safety circuitry is inserted into the circuit design to detect and correct faults, then the reliability of the electronic system is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The functional safety validation tool performs preliminary analysis of the circuit design to identify vulnerable sections before final implementation. Safety circuitry is selected and prepared in advance based on systematic FMEA, allowing the main circuit to be modified only where absolutely necessary rather than adding safety features throughout the entire design.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of applying uniform safety measures across the entire circuit design, the tool identifies specific vulnerable sections and applies safety circuitry only to those localized areas. This targeted approach maintains reliability improvements while minimizing the overall increase in device complexity.
2Reliability
If comprehensive safety validation and verification steps are performed, then the functional safety is improved, but the productivity and time to market are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The functional safety validation tool performs FMEA and identifies vulnerable sections during the early design phase, before full verification and manufacturing. This preliminary safety analysis prevents the need for extensive rework later in the design flow, actually improving overall productivity despite the additional initial validation steps.
Solution Approach 2:
The tool replaces manual, time-consuming safety validation processes with automated computational analysis. The functional safety validation tool automatically performs FMEA, identifies vulnerable sections, and generates verification requirements, substituting human expert analysis with efficient algorithmic processing that maintains comprehensive safety validation while reducing time requirements.
3Ease of operation
If manual safety analysis and verification methods are used, then the ease of operation is maintained, but the measurement precision and fault detection capability are insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The functional safety validation tool replaces manual safety analysis methods with automated computational FMEA and vulnerability assessment algorithms. This substitution maintains ease of operation by providing a user-friendly automated interface while dramatically improving measurement precision through systematic, comprehensive analysis that eliminates human error and oversight.
Solution Approach 2:
The tool provides automated feedback throughout the design process, identifying vulnerable sections and recommending safety circuitry insertions. This feedback mechanism guides designers through the safety validation process without requiring deep expertise, maintaining ease of operation while achieving high precision fault detection through systematic analysis.
Data Source
AI summary
This application discloses a computing system implementing a functional safety validation tool to locate a vulnerable section of an electronic system described in a circuit design, select safety circuitry configured to monitor the vulnerable section of the electronic system, and modify the circuit design by inserting the safety circuitry and control circuitry into the circuit design. The control circuitry and the safety circuitry can detect faults in the vulnerable section of the electronic system. The functional safety validation tool can generate a logical equivalency check script for the modified circuit design, wherein a logical equivalency checking tool can be utilized to determine whether the modified circuit design is logically equivalent to the circuit design. The functional safety validation tool can generate a test bench for the modified circuit design, wherein at least one verification tool can be utilized in a verification environment to simulate the modified circuit design.