Lee was invited as a guest expert at The 26262 Club Technical Conference 2022, were we had the opportunity to meet and discuss. We took the opportunity to elaborate further on Design-for-Test and how can it support semiconductors in reaching the desired ASIL.   

Club Editor: Lee, thank you for your time and contribution. Today, we would like to discuss more in depth Design-for-Test (DFT) and how can the Siemens Tessent tools help in this increasingly challenging domain.  Can you first tell us what are the applications of DFT and what are the benefits in each application level?

Lee, Siemens EDA: Great to talk to you. Design-for-Test (DFT) or structural testing has been a must have for any chip design for the last 30+ years. Delivering extremely high-quality manufacturing test. With a mix of Tessent ATPG (Automatic Test Pattern Generation), Logic BIST (Built In Self-Test) and Memory BIST. We provide all the tools for chip designers to achieve that Zero Defect manufacturing test requirement, referred to as T0 testing.

Club Editor: How can DFT support the application of ISO 26262 and functional safety practitioners?

Lee: Well, the application of DFT doesn’t stop at manufacturing test, in the world of functional safety, it also provides extremely effective safety mechanisms. Enabling safety engineers to achieve a high Single Point Fault Metric (SPFM) in a very short period of time. Perfect for the tight time requirements for Key-on or vehicle start-up testing, but at the same time making sure that chip designs and safety practitioners achieve their target ASIL level.

Obviously, the precise implementation of these technologies will vary based on the end application and ASIL target but have the flexibility to be able to manage even the most complex ASIL D implementations. With our In-system test controller MissionMode forming part of the device safety island to manage and monitor all the on-chip test instruments.

Over the last couple of years, we have worked extremely hard to make sure that all of our generated DFT IP is independently certified to ASIL-D, to ensure that our customers using the technology have the confidence that our technology will complement their overall safety architecture.

Club Editor: Can the Siemens Tessent tools help with reducing the difficulty and cost associated with testing an integrated circuit? What would you say is the top benefit of Tessent DFT?

Lee: With all EDA technologies one of our main aims is to reduce the complexity and implementation effort for the user. We do this with the extensive use of industry standards  such as IEEE 1149.1, IEEE1687 and of course, full analysis and automation as you would expect form an EDA solution. This enables designers to be able to spend more time on their design implementation and ensure their innovative products can be realised and meet the various safety requirements needed.

Club Editor: What can you say about how you see the future of the industry and the technologies that will be needed in the future?

Lee: As you all know the automotive electronics industry is an extremely exciting and rapidly changing place to be right now. Firstly, to ensure that our technologies can keep pace with these ever-advancing requirements we have several exciting developments, to mention just a couple:

1. As the Automotive supply chain continues to change in terms of who does what. The need for full RTL sign-off is becoming more and more important, together with the increase in complexity of the in-system test implementations. Driving the need to shift left and ensure all of the safety architecture is in place at RTL. Our complete Tessent portfolio now enables all of this implementation to be done at RTL level, ensuring that safety is part of the RTL design and not an afterthought.
2. With an extending focus reaching beyond just the IC level and looking at safety from a more holistic system level, Our Tessent Embedded analytics provide Realtime system monitoring enabling system level safety and security to be addressed. Detecting any number of different anomalies within the operation of the device that could be caused by hardware / software issues or even cyber security attacks.
3. Coupled with the Tessent Test technologies the Tessent Embedded Analytics also provide a very unique window in to the health and operation of any device, with the ability to extract a wealth of data which can be used to start doing predictive reliability and behaviour monitoring, not just in once vehicle but over a fleet of vehicles.

Club Editor: Thank you Lee for your valuable insights and we hope to hear more from you soon. In the meantime, we provide relevant resources.

Resources:

• Safety Island Whitepaper: Management of test, safety, and security data at the edge for ISO 26262 – You can access the paper here.

• Using built-in-self-test hardware to satisfy ISO 26262 safety requirements – You can access the paper here.

• High-quality test and embedded analytics for secure applications – You can access the paper here.