From: [ Jim Hogan of Vista Ventures LLC ]
Subject: How Safety Critical Verification is Next Big Thing
Hi, John
Since DAC’17 is only 3 weeks away, I thought I’d expand on my past DeepChip
series related to verification [Formal, COVE, Emulation], and on my comment
last year about safety critical chips — by doing a very detailed look at
what I call “Safety Critical Verification (SCV)” — as I believe it will be
a driving force in verification methods moving forward.
IT’S ALL ABOUT COMPLIANCE
Safety critical verification is compliance-driven. It has neutral outside
UN-like sanctioning bodies that govern this compliance — with very strict
and very specific regulations for each industry.
Although safety critical chip design appears to be a different animal when
you look at it across different industries, one way to think of it is:
“A system whose failure or malfunction may result in personal injury,
severe damage to equipment or property, or environmental harm.”
The traditional place where safety critical chip design is done has
historically been for chips in nuclear power station instrumentation,
defense hardware, medical — and even in industrial settings where a
malfunctioning factory robot could hurt workers. And it also now
includes chips for cars, planes, and trains.
An engineer working in any of these safety critical spaces needs to
understand the requirements that will be enforced.