Arm and Green Hills Software collaborate on functional safety design

Software and tools by Green Hills are now part of Arm’s Functional Safety Partnership Program, announced at Arm TechCon 2019.

The software company has supported the Arm architecture since 1997 for safety-critical embedded systems for automobiles, building security, aircraft, surgical devices and industrial machinery.

Arm helps its customers enable functional safety on next-generation SoCs through a range of IP, design tools, support and involvement with international safety organisations. Arm’s Functional Safety Partnership Program promotes proven partners such as Green Hills Software in the categories of Software and Tools, Design Services and Training Services.

Green Hills provides safety-certified real-time operating system (RTOS) for critical embedded applications. The Integrity and Integrity-178 tuMP RTOS with secure Multivisor hypervisor technology and Multi C/C++ compilers and run-time libraries have achieved certification for avionics (RTCA/DO-178B/C Level A), automotive (ISO 26262 ASIL D), industrial (IEC 61508 SIL 3) and railway (EN 50128 SIL 4).

Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software specialises in embedded safety and security. In 2008, the Green Hills Integrity-178 RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership comprised of NSA and NIST) to EAL 6+, High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. The open architecture integrated development solutions address deeply embedded, absolute security and high-reliability applications for the military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, networking, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions, says Green Hills.

The company is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, USA and has its European headquarters in the United Kingdom.

http://www.ghs.com

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Functional safety verification accelerates certification time for ISO 26262 IP

Synopsys claims to offer the industry’s first comprehensive functional safety verification suite. It includes unified failure modes and effects analysis/ failure modes, effects and diagnostic analysis (FMEA/FMEDA) and fault classification automation, powerful verification engines and ISO 26262-certified tools for IP and SoC certification.

According to Synopsys, it can reduce the effort required for functional safety verification up to 50 per cent compared to traditional manual and error-prone functional safety verification point tools.

The suite targets ISO 26262 certification for automotive IP and semiconductor companies for the highest Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASIL D).

Part of the verification solution is the VC Functional Safety Manager, a FMEA/FMEDA and fault classification automation technology.   

Automotive semiconductor designs are growing in complexity to meet the increasing functionality demand for applications such as powertrain, advanced driver assistance, and autonomous driving. At the same time, semiconductor companies are required to deliver ISO 26262 certification for their products to customers. This combination is expected to increase verification efforts by a factor of two to three. Synopsys’ unified functional safety solution provides technologies to bridge the current productivity gaps by delivering a comprehensive FMEA/FMEDA and fault classification automation solution using a unified fault definition and database with the fastest verification engines. Synopsys also provides tool certification and services to accelerate planning, development, and work product generation for assessors and customers.

In addition to the VC Functional Safety Manager, automation tool delivering the highest productivity through a FMEA/FMEDA and unified fault campaign process, there is the Synopsys TestMAX FuSa, used to perform early functional safety analysis at RTL- or gate-level and identify candidates for TMR and DCLS redundancy.

The Z01X fault simulator is for fast and proven digital fault simulation and the VC Formal FuSa app accelerates fault classification using formal filtering.

Synopsys TestMax CustomFault for analogue and mixed-signal fault simulation provides full-chip functional safety and test coverage analysis and ZeBu Server is claimed to be the industry’s fastest emulator, to perform fault emulation for long software-rich tests.

For debug, planning and coverage there is Verdi Fault Analysis and Certitude functional qualification demonstrates verification flow robustness in support of ISO 26262 Part 8-9 assessments.

The Synopsys Unified Functional Safety Verification Solution and VC Functional Safety Manager are available today for select customer engagements.

http://www.synopsys.com

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Adlink accelerates AI access for industry’s IoT

Adlink Edge IoT software enables industrial customers to access AI and drive real time decision making at the edge, says the company, adding that this optimises operational efficiency

Adlink Edge can quickly and securely connect, stream and control operational data – regardless of what industrial equipment, systems, databases or cloud platforms are already used, says the company. Lawrence Ross, general manager of Software & Solutions at Adlink explained: “Using that data our end-to-end industrial IoT solution enables rapid, real time intelligent decision-making empowered by AI, analytics tools and machine learning . . .  partners and customers can quickly find and use the data . . . whether their objectives are optimising efficiency, predictive maintenance or identifying new business models.”

Target applications are automating warehouse logistics with smart scanning, enabling predictive maintenance, optimising efficiency with machine condition monitoring, machine vision and machine learning, enabling automation and reducing time to market, reducing downtime and optimising efficiency and enabling smart remote monitoring.

No programming is necessary, so Adlink can quickly connect previously unconnected operational equipment, sensors and devices. By tapping into native communication protocols, data can be captured and streamed at the edge. From the edge, this data can then be streamed securely between devices – databases and to the cloud, enabling analysis and easy visualisation to inform decisions and optimise operations in real time.

Adlink Edge is deployed via the company’s innovative Digital Experiments methodology which can include hardware, software and support elements for easy integration with any existing IT and OT system.

Users are also able to benefit from IoT expertise within Adlink’s ecosystem which includes AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, Thingworx, IBM Watson, FogHorn, Intel and SAS.

Adlink Edge is built upon the Adlink Data River which simplifies complex data network programming and enables data to flow freely, but securely, to and from any cloud analytic platform database and between devices, databases and the cloud.

The Adlink Data River is trusted within the military and aerospace industries to deliver mission critical data securely in real time, Adlink notes.

ADLINK Edge™ also includes the Adlink Marketplace containing apps which are connectors enabling third party services to translate between devices and applications, or devices and peer devices.  Also integrated is the Adlink Profile Builder tool which helps users configure and deploy all the apps to communicate with end-points, devices or applications into the platform deployed across a customer’s ecosystem.

https://www.adlinktech.com

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Efficient NFC programming method for LED drivers

For fast implementation of near field communication (NFC) programming for LED drivers, Infineon Technologies has developed the NFC-PWM series NLM0011 and NLM0010.

The devices are NFC wireless-configuration ICs with configurable PWM output, primarily designed for LED applications. They enable NFC programming implementation by using a PWM signal directly to control the analogue driver IC.

Both devices have two operation modes, passive and active. In the passive mode, the LED driver module is not powered, and the PWM-related parameters can be configured wirelessly via the NFC interface. In the active mode, as soon as the V CC voltage supply is powered, a PWM output is generated according to the stored parameters. With an external R/C filter, the PWM signal is converted to the desired DC voltage to control the current output of an LED driver.

An integrated constant lumen output (CLO) function compensates the luminous flux drop (ageing effect) of the LED module by automatically adjusting the LED current to the ageing characteristics of the LEDs. With an integrated operation-time counter and stored LED degradation curve in the CLO table, NLM0011 automatically adjusts the PWM duty cycle to compensate for the LED degradation.

Fitting seamlessly to the mainstream analogue driver ICs, there is no need for firmware development input and, says the company, it   adopted into existing designs to replace the “plug-in resistor” current configuration concept. Non-volatile memory including unique identification data and 20 bytes free memory for user data is also featured in the devices.

The NLM0011 and NLM0010 can be ordered now in a SOT23-5 package.

NFC programming is an emerging technology designed to replace the “plug-in resistor” current setting method via contactless NFC interface. Besides improving the operational efficiency by enabling automatic programming in the manufacturing line, it can create significant flexibility in the value chain. With this it reduces the LED driver variants, simplifies the selection of LED modules, and allows end-of-line configuration.

http://www.infineon.com/nfc-pwm

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