It has been announced by Mentor, a Siemens business that the Xpedition and PADS Professional printed circuit board design (PCB) design flows, including the Valor NPI and HyperLynx family of products, have each achieved ISO 26262 functional safety compliance.
Mentor has met the requirements for validation and confirmation measures, providing confidence that a sufficient and acceptable level of safety can be achieved using these Mentor PCB products. The Xpedition and PADS Professional flows and related documentation were evaluated by TÜV SÜD, an internationally accredited independent testing and conformity assessment company, and certified to achieve ISO 26262 Tool Confidence Level 1 for ASIL A through ASIL D.
ISO 26262 establishes a unifying, industry-specific standard for the functional safety and expected reliability of E/E systems in passenger vehicles. With the certification of these Mentor products, automotive design teams can now use either Mentor PCB design flow for performance efficiency, predictability, and productivity for functional safety.
Mike Varnau, President at Reliability Solutions, stated: “Safety is a key design requirement for automotive electronics systems. It’s critical that design teams can confidently design to fully meet Functional Safety requirements. Now that Mentor’s PCB design tools are ISO 26262 certified, design teams can now confidently design compliant products faster at lower cost with less risk.”
The Xpedition and PADS Professional flows are certified for Tool Confidence Level 1 (TCL-1) across ASIL A through D levels. Mentor’s PCB design flow provides design entry, logical and functional schematic validation, and PCB layout. Complementing the Xpedition and PADS Professional Mentor flows, signal integrity, power integrity, thermal analysis, and new product introduction (NPI), are achieved by using the HyperLynx and Valor NPI tools, respectively.
A.J. Incorvaia, Vice President and General Manager, Mentor Board Systems Division, added: “Achieving ISO 26262 compliance for our Xpedition and PADS Professional flows, including our supporting tools, ensures that our customers can design automotive electronic systems with the greatest confidence in functional safety compliance. As a result, our systems design portfolio will help our customers achieve success in reliable and innovative automotive products development.”
The certification of the Xpedition and PADS Professional flows with their supporting tools expands the Mentor Safe program into printed circuit board design. Mentor Safe is one of the industry’s broadest and most comprehensive ISO 26262 qualification and certification programs, established to help automotive and industrial customers rapidly navigate the increasing complex process of functional safety certification with confidence.
Mentor’s Xpedition, PADS, HyperLynx and Valor NPI products are available now.