ams to roll out first ISO26262 Automotive products

Released in 2011, the ISO26262 standard is the major global regulation governing functional safety in road vehicles. A growing share of safety critical systems under development in the automotive industry today follows this standard. The severity of a possible failure in an automotive system leads to the assignment of an Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) to it. Levels of A, B, C or D exist with D being the most critical. The ASIL then in turn demands a maximum failure rate and a minimum percentage of “safe” failures with respect to all failures the system can have in operation. To ensure a high share of safe failures the implementation of safety and diagnosis functions in the semiconductor devices present in the system is required. The standard also provides a framework for the validation and documentation of the safety features implemented. The vast majority of today’s automotive ICs under development at ams include ISO26262 requirements. Device applications cover electric power steering, pedal and position sensors. The first products developed along the standard are now approaching production release in early 2013. Bernd Gessner, Vice President and General Manager of the automotive business unit at ams asserted: "Previous generations of ams products have an impeccable safety record in automotive applications. But the rigorous analysis required for compliance with ISO26262 uncovered new ways in which ams could raise the reliability of its devices to an even higher level. ISO26262 has, in our view, become a critical extension of the safety regime governing automotive components and modules."