Safety chips in light of the standard IEC 61508: Survey and analysis

With the release of the second edition of the standard IEC 61508 for functional safety of electrical, electronic and programmable electronic systems, a set of methodologies and implementation techniques was presented, which allows the realization and certification of safety-related solutions with on-chip redundancy. In a broader context, the standard ISO 26262 offers similar methodologies for safety solutions for automotive applications. The main focus of the research work of our institute is laid on the development and certification of safety-chips according to the standard IEC 61508. Together with an industrial partner, we are developing chip-based safety-related solutions for several industrial applications. In the same context, several semiconductor manufacturers addressed the development of such solutions in the last years, mainly with the focus on automotive applications. The present paper provides an overview of existing and planned safety chip architectures. Furthermore, a cursory analysis of the presented safety-chips is carried out with respect to the standard IEC 61508. A deep qualitative and quantitative analysis require experiments and simulations which will be carried out in future work.