2019-08-17

Dr. Michael Ohletz discusses importance of IDT's automotive functional safety program.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to IDT, and welcome to the Automotive Center of Excellence at IDT Europe. I'm Michael Ohletz, the vice president of IDT's corporate automotive quality. And I'm located at IDT's European headquarters in Dresden, Germany. Today I would like to talk about IDT's automotive functional safety program. Safety has always been a topic receiving much attention ever since automotive products were developed and employed in vehicles of all kinds. However, back around 2011, the functional safety standard for industrial applications IEC-61508 was adopted for automotive applications and products, today known as ISO 26262. Now all automotive products and safety relevant applications have to be developed and manufactured under this standard.
 
This requirement has been very much pushed to the front with the trends moving to autonomous driving, known as ADAS - Autonomous Driver Assistance Systems. Experts in functional safety are rare in our industry. And therefore IDT Europe is proud to have one of these experts with practical experience on its own team. IDT Europe established the position of and officially nominated this person as IDT functional safety manager back in 2014, when IDT Europe still was in ZMDI. Today, he is part of the IDT Europe Automotive Center of Excellence. Since the introduction of this position of functional safety manager, IDT Europe has rolled out the ISO 26262 requirements for automotive product development and has supported many automotive customers and meetings, or even with customer onsite workshops on functional safety.
 
Product development under ISO 26262 regime is quite different from what today is referred to as QM level development. Even before such a development is started, the future automotive safety integrity level (ASIL) has to be committed. If the prerequisites are not correct, the product either does not meet the targeted ASIL level or the product becomes larger and thus too expensive, and a loss of resources and investment may have already occurred. The matter is not only complicated, but also complex, and the world's technology reliability data, design architecture, defect performance, manufacturing, and a sustainable safety culture, a broad organization-wide approach toward the safety management. 
 
To support such ISO 26262 product developments, IDT Europe has extended its original high temperature monitoring program and turned it into a technology reliability monitoring program for its 180 nanometer projects. The data from this program shows as of today a FIT rate of 4.18 FIT at the confidence level of 70%, and a reference temperature of 55 degree Celsius. The ITO-16949 is the basis to develop ISO 26262 product, IDT Europe started the second level of certification for selected product managers to further increase the bandwidth and R&D. Then Automotive Center of Excellence at IDT Europe is prepared for this new automotive challenge and can offer practical experience in the development and manufacturing of ISO 26262 products. IDT Europe and the IDT automotive quality team are ready to develop and support your next functional safety products. Thank you, and we are ready. And IDT automotive – driving quality.