Hardware Engineering
ISO 26262-5: Designing safe automotive hardware with quantitative integrity metrics
What You'll Learn
Build complete competency in hardware engineering through structured, progressive learning.
Derive HW safety requirements
Translate Technical Safety Concept requirements into specific, testable hardware safety requirements
Calculate HW metrics
Accurately compute SPFM, LFM, and PMHF for automotive hardware designs against ASIL A-D targets
Design safe architectures
Create hardware architectures with appropriate safety mechanisms and redundancy for the required ASIL level
Perform hardware DFA
Identify and mitigate dependent failures including common cause and common mode failures in hardware designs
Qualify ASICs and FPGAs
Apply ISO 26262 requirements to programmable hardware development with appropriate HDL analysis and verification
Pass hardware assessment
Prepare a complete FMEDA, hardware metric report, and DFA package that satisfies independent assessor requirements
16 Comprehensive Chapters
Each chapter builds your hardware engineering expertise systematically from foundations to advanced application.
Overview
Introduce ISO 26262-5 as the hardware engineering part of the standard and its role in the overall safety lifecycle.
ISO 26262-5 Framework
Map the normative requirements of Part 5 to hardware development activities and identify mandatory vs. recommended methods.
HW Safety Requirements
Derive hardware safety requirements from the Technical Safety Concept and manage them through the hardware development lifecycle.
Architectural Design
Design the hardware architecture to achieve the required ASIL capabilities, including safety mechanism allocation and channel definition.
HSI Specification
Specify the Hardware-Software Interface (HSI) to ensure that software safety requirements are correctly addressed at the hardware boundary.
Element Selection
Select hardware elements with appropriate failure rate data, qualification status, and proven-in-use records for safety-relevant designs.
Detailed Design
Develop detailed hardware designs with schematic, BOM, and layout considerations that implement and protect safety mechanisms.
Implementation
Manage hardware implementation including PCB manufacture, assembly, and first-article inspection with safety-relevant process controls.
SPFM/LFM/PMHF Targets
Calculate Single-Point Fault Metric, Latent Fault Metric, and Probabilistic Metric for Hardware Failure (PMHF) against ASIL targets.
Safety Mechanism Integration
Integrate hardware safety mechanisms including watchdogs, voltage monitors, ECC memory, and redundant signal paths into the design.
DFA for Hardware
Perform Dependent Failure Analysis for hardware to identify common cause and common mode failures that could defeat redundancy.
ASIC/FPGA Development
Apply ISO 26262 requirements to ASIC and FPGA development, including IP qualification, HDL coding guidelines, and synthesis verification.
PCB Design & EMC
Address PCB-level design guidelines and EMC considerations that affect hardware safety integrity in automotive environments.
HW-SW Integration
Manage hardware-software integration testing to validate that safety mechanisms implemented in hardware are correctly triggered and handled by software.
Verification & Test
Plan and execute hardware verification activities including design reviews, analysis, and physical testing to demonstrate safety requirement compliance.
Best Practices
Consolidate hardware engineering best practices for ISO 26262 compliance including FMEDA efficiency techniques and assessor expectations.
6 Hardware Engineering Diagrams
Experiment with visual tools that bring hardware engineering concepts to life.
HW Development V-Model
Complete hardware development V-model from HSR derivation through architectural design, detailed design, and integration to verification
SPFM/LFM Calculation Flow
Step-by-step calculation flow for SPFM and LFM from component FMEDA failure mode classification to metric computation against ASIL targets
Safety Mechanism Coverage
Diagram showing how hardware safety mechanisms provide diagnostic coverage for single-point and latent faults across the design
DFA Common Cause Map
Annotated hardware block diagram identifying potential common cause failure sources including shared power rails, ground planes, and thermal coupling
PMHF Budget Allocation
Tree diagram showing PMHF budget allocation from system-level target through subsystems and components with residual and tolerable values
HW-SW Interface Specification
Layer diagram showing HSI elements including register maps, interrupt lines, and diagnostic status signals with ASIL level tagging
Radar ECU Hardware Development for ADAS
An automotive supplier developed an ASIL D radar processing ECU for autonomous emergency braking. The FMEDA identified that the initial architecture had SPFM of only 96.8%, below the 97% ASIL D target. Addition of a dedicated CPU lockstep monitor raised SPFM to 98.4%.
- FMEDA covered 847 component failure modes across 23 ICs and 340 passives
- PMHF of 1.8 × 10⁻⁸/h achieved against ASIL D target of < 10⁻⁸/h at item level
- DFA identified 4 common cause failure scenarios addressed with physical separation
- Hardware verified with 1,200 fault injection test cases achieving 98% safety mechanism coverage
FMEDA Template
Master ISO 26262 Hardware Engineering
Build the technical expertise to design, analyze, and verify automotive hardware systems to ISO 26262-5 requirements
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