Ansys software drives a robust digital engineering approach to validating the functional safety of ADI’s automotive electronics.
Automotive technology is accelerating rapidly, marked by the advent of software-defined vehicles (SDVs) in which critical vehicle functions are managed by software. According to Forbes, the SDV market is expected to reach 7.6 million units this year, up from 6.2 million in 2024, in response to consumer demand for smarter, more connected, and more efficient vehicles.
This convergence of hardware and software into a standard architecture enables a higher level of flexibility for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) across vehicle programs. In this instance, software becomes the key driver in the rapid-fire delivery of new features and feature upgrades to systems (and systems of systems) via over-the-air updates.
To complicate matters, all must comply with ISO 26262, a safety-centered industry standard that takes aim at functional safety (FuSa) standards for complex vehicle electronics. Establishing compliance is an industry imperative, as it ensures reliability in vehicle performance over time, without fail.
Against the backdrop of this technological push, Analog Devices Inc. (ADI), a global semiconductor leader that bridges the physical and digital worlds, must address these rigorous standards and safeguard against sophisticated cyberthreats in its automotive solutions, which power many of the vehicles we drive today. ADI’s analog, software, and digital solutions enable real-time insights at the Intelligent Edge to help redefine how value is created and delivered across the automotive ecosystem.
The company, which is a key supplier in the automotive ecosystem, does it all with help from Ansys medini analyze software by using applications for semiconductor functional safety while evaluating system-oriented cybersecurity analysis that supports its robust digital engineering strategy.
“As vehicles become more connected and autonomous, the need for robust functional safety and cybersecurity measures becomes increasingly vital,” says Kyle Fabris, director of functional safety at ADI. “This situation is resulting in overengineering in several areas due to difficulties in effectively modeling systems of systems. ADI is avoiding this tendency toward overengineering by focusing on the Intelligent Edge to develop solutions that manage the complexity of connected systems, ensuring safety and enhancing autonomous technology.”
It’s All About Working Smarter, Not Harder
ADI’s complete solutions provide the foundational technologies that power a wide range of applications designed to help ensure safety and improve the overall efficiency of the systems they support. These include advanced driver-assistance systems, as well as electrified and autonomous vehicle systems.
ADI builds on simple integrated circuits to deliver complex systems-in-package and comprehensive end-to-end solutions. This requires the complex integration of hardware, software, and multiple chip designs.
“Where we are in the automotive industry — and where semiconductors are in the future — is that the systems are getting more complex,” says Fabris. “You can’t solve all the problems on a board small enough to fit in all mounting envelopes within a car. In the world of autonomous vehicles and battery management systems, ADI’s comprehensive solutions are crucial for shrinking and making things more compact and cost-effective. Semiconductors are the way to go.”
Indeed, semiconductor geometries typically just a few nanometers in size serve as the underpinnings for many of the vehicle technologies we enjoy today. In the manufacturing of its chips, ADI is challenged to ensure that these safety-critical components are reliable, meet international standards, and can secure the supply chain against potential cyberthreats. In the execution of these solutions, ADI also needs to consider security access to printed circuit boards (PCBs), detect faults in discrete components, and provide guidance and usage assumptions with its system solutions.
“We need to be smarter and more pragmatic about what we’re doing to enable faster and more efficient use of hundreds of safety mechanisms, which ultimately vehicles need to be more effective, safer, and more secure themselves,” says Fabris. “It’s about putting the work in where the work should be, not just putting in work for work’s sake. Ansys software is crucial to supporting our objectives for efficiency.”
A typical diagram in which Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) defines safety requirements
Driving Consensus Building Around Functional Safety
To keep pace with rapidly changing customer expectations in the automotive space, suppliers find themselves in a continual cycle of innovation. Delivering the right data to customers at the right time is important to this success, as weaknesses must be quickly identified and resolved by re-architecting where necessary. To do this, ADI connects with its safety and security teams early in the development phase.
“We’re working within medini analyze software to build the infrastructure needed to enable teams to quickly build concepts by utilizing a series of reference libraries and catalogs,” says Fabris. “Medini analyze software is fundamental to achieving our model-based systems engineering (MBSE)-related goals, as well. It allows us to integrate expert judgment into the libraries and pull forward new designs based on existing real-world data.”
Project Browser showing an enhanced structure where ADI-built reuse libraries are shown
Richard O’Brien, functional safety engineer at ADI, recalls that he first used medini analyze software approximately eight years ago as part of a model-based design approach centered on building out and building up concepts, then quickly diving into their analysis.
“We’re still in the process of evolving our digital engineering strategy, developing the features and integrating more with medini software,” he says. “Its capabilities are very flexible, enabling us to reuse previous projects, libraries, and catalogs. This flexibility is key to ADI’s leadership in the Intelligent Edge, allowing us to integrate other third-party software tools in a way that aligns with our development goals.”
Flexing on Digital Engineering Strategy
Incorporating Ansys software into ADI’s overall digital engineering strategy also led to unexpected, valuable discoveries. In general, it is the newfound flexibility and customization capabilities the team gains using the tool that emerged as one of the biggest benefits.
“If we look at this integration from an architectural development perspective, we’re linking more information,” says Fabris. “We’re doing all the work in a model-based environment without doing as much documentation. We’re getting value out of executing speedy risk-based analysis. And we can work through concept phases and deliver real evidence that we thought through the architecture with a nice, traceable link.”
With the help of medini analyze software, it’s possible to build up libraries of information that can be applied in the manufacture of new chips or systems based on previous data. Specifically, it enables the team to integrate its expert judgment into newly created libraries and pull forward new designs based on real-world data. Rather than start from scratch, the team can access prefilled historical data that is predefined for the application based on previous designs.
ADI also realizes significant efficiency gains in the use of open-source software to generate documentation. Now, the team is working with Ansys to integrate this functionality into its existing workflow to build a suite of push-button report generators. This will greatly decrease the time and effort required to communicate details for customer-facing documents and internal reports.
A sysML model in which model-based architectures are built using ADI’s reuse libraries, enabling functional analysis early in product development cycles
Of course, providing a sound framework for increasing efficiency is an important aspect of ADI’s digital engineering strategy. However, it’s the level of trust medini analyze software delivers — one that resonates throughout the industry — that ADI relies on.
“If we fail to do our functional safety aspects, if we don’t do the design correctly or we don’t have the right data, more than one thing is affected,” says Fabris. “That’s one of the reasons why we take so much care and effort in what we do. Medini software supports the testing and verification, communication, and documentation during analysis we need to seamlessly execute on safe, reliable products for our customers.”
Learn More
We’ve talked a lot about functional safety analysis. Make sure to check out Ansys medini analyze software for cybersecurity threat analysis and risk assessment and the role that it plays in ensuring the safety and security of automotive applications.
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“Medini analyze software is fundamental to achieving our model-based systems engineering (MBSE)-related goals ... It allows us to integrate expert judgment into the libraries and pull forward new designs based on existing real-world data.”
— Kyle Fabris, director of functional safety, Analog Devices Inc.
