The industry's most comprehensive automotive certification

The comprehensive ISO 26262 assessments have been performed by exida, an ANSI-accredited certification body for functional safety in automotive and other industries. ISO 26262 certification allows Synopsys tools and flows to be deployed in the development of automotive designs with safety requirements from ASIL A through ASIL D.

These flows are the first to conform to the most stringent requirements of both the ISO 26262:2011 standard and the draft release of the upcoming ISO 26262:2018 second edition.

"Renesas has long been performing ISO 26262 evaluation and assessment for all of the tools in our design flow," said Hideyuki Okabe, director of the Digital Design Technology Department, Shared R&D Division 2, Broad-based Solution Business Unit at Renesas Electronics Corporation.

"We are excited about the availability of these new flow certifications for the Synopsys Design Platform for our present and future safety-related automotive designs targeting for ADAS and automated driving applications."

These design flow certifications complement the full portfolio of tools that have already been independently ISO 26262-certified. Covering 40 tools spanning custom, analog/mixed-signal (AMS), digital implementation, signoff, and library development products, this unprecedented level of certification delivers the industry's most comprehensive and broadest portfolio of ISO 26262 certified EDA design tools.

The ISO 26262 standard outlines requirements that must be considered during the development of safety-related automotive systems and components, including mandatory software tool evaluation and potential qualification for design tools.

As a result of this activity, Synopsys provides downloadable kits, which include the industry's most thorough Functional Safety Manual for each product that prescribes conditions and assumptions of use for specific tool use cases and potential software tool malfunctions, facilitating the end-user's tool deployment and qualification process.

"We have worked with Synopsys to assess their EDA tools and tool chains against the objectives and requirements of the ISO 26262 standard. We certify that all software tools in the assessed tool chains have achieved a required Tool Confidence Level of TCL1, and that they can be used in the development of semiconductors with allocated requirements up to the highest automotive safety integrity level (ASIL) D," said Alexander Griessing, principle safety expert and manager at exida.

"Synopsys has performed a very detailed analysis of potential software tool malfunctions, and has defined effective prevention and detection measures. The Functional Safety Manuals summarise these to provide clear and practical guidance to Synopsys tool users."

"We have recently seen a significant improvement in test coverage and component manufacturing by deploying Synopsys' ISO 26262-certified test platform," said Aw Yong Chee Kong, president of Phison Electronics Corporation. "Synopsys Design Platform tool and flow certification enables us to ensure that our automotive design flow is fully compliant to the ISO 26262 standard."

"We are already the business and technology leader in the automotive IC design segment of semiconductors," said Michael Jackson, corporate vice president of marketing and business development for the Design Group at Synopsys.

"Building on our products that have already been certified, this unique full-flow certification enables our established and new automotive customers to confidently deploy our Design Platform, enabled by Fusion Technology, on their next super-chip design for the automotive market."