We Need to Talk! Communication Needed Between Verification and Safety
By Bryon Moyer, Electronic Engineering Journal | Feat. Jörg Grosse, Product Manager Functional Safety, OneSpin
"What we have here is a failure to communicate." – Cool Hand Luke
"The farmer and the cowman should be friends." – Oklahoma
There are apparently a couple of silos in the EDA world that could use some breaking down.
- On one side, we have verification. This is a well-established discipline involving numerous EDA tools and a brief that compels verification engineers to make sure that a design does what it is intended to do.
- On the other side, we have safety engineering. This is a newer discipline to EDA, charged with making sure that a design won’t put someone or something in danger if things go awry.
Historically, safety has been limited to the rather rarified realms of aviation and military. Folks operating in those markets have been a different breed, sacrificing flexibility and agility for what many might see as a cumbersome, inefficient process of checks and cross-checks and adherence to what can be mind-numbing regulations, all designed to keep soldiers and aircraft passengers and, frankly, innocent bystanders, safe.
