ATPG tool provides highest level of safety-related tool confidence

Certification provides designers the highest level of confidence in the use of TetraMAX II for safety-critical automotive applications and accelerates functional safety qualification for automotive ICs, up to the stringent requirements for automotive safety integrity level ASIL D.

On the path to delivering fully autonomous cars, automakers are rapidly deploying electronic advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to aid drivers and reduce accidents. Since failures in these systems may lead to unacceptable consequences, automakers work with their suppliers to increase IC quality, reliability and functional safety. TetraMAX II enables engineers to target higher levels of IC test quality, a key requirement for automotive products, by testing for multiple fault models while minimising the impact on test costs and test pattern generation time. To ensure best engineering practices are used to minimise the risk of failures impacting the functional safety elements of automotive ICs, ISO 26262 defines the qualification requirements for software design tools used in their development. SGS-TÜV Saar GmbH certified TetraMAX II according to ASIL D requirements, the highest level of functional safety prescribed by ISO 26262.

"Tool qualification according to ISO 26262 is an important contribution to increased engineers' confidence in the EDA software tools they use to develop automotive ICs targeted at electronic safety systems," said Gudrun Neumann, Product Manager of Functional Safety Software at SGS-TÜV Saar GmbH. "Satisfying the ISO 26262 for the most stringent ASIL D applications enables IC design teams to accelerate the overall functional safety certification requirements for their products. Synopsys' TetraMAX II ATPG complies with the ASIL D safety requirements for software tools used in the development of safety-related electronic systems. SGS-TÜV Saar's certificate for TetraMAX II is based on a successful functional safety evaluation of validation processes against the requirements of ISO 26262."

"Synopsys' automotive IC customers worldwide have trusted TetraMAX ATPG to deliver the best test quality and lowest test cost for their most complex designs," said Bijan Kiani, Vice President of Marketing in Synopsys' Design Group. "Our new TetraMAX II ATPG solution reinforces our commitment to helping automotive IC design teams accelerate their manufacturing test development by reducing ATPG runtime from days to hours and lower test costs with 25% fewer patterns. For automotive IC applications, TetraMAX II provides the opportunity to increase test quality with multiple fault models, without significant impact to test costs and test generation time. In addition, certification for TetraMAX II contributes to meeting their functional safety requirements related to compliance of the ISO 26262 standard."