Moving Towards Analog Functional Safety

Over the past century, the exponential growth of the semiconductor industry has led to the creation of tiny and complex integrated circuits, e.g., sensors, actuators, and smart power systems. Innovative techniques are needed to ensure the correct functionality of analog devices that are ubiquitous in every smart system. The standard ISO 26262 related to functional safety in the automotive context specifies that fault injection is necessary to validate all electronic devices. For decades, standardizing fault modeling, injection and simulation mainly focused on digital circuits and disregarding analog ones. An initial attempt is being made with the IEEE P2427 standard draft standard that started to give this field a structured and formal organization. In this context, new fault models, injection, and abstraction methodologies for analog circuits are proposed in this thesis to enhance this application field. The faults proposed by the IEEE P2427 standard draft standard are initially evaluated to understand the associated fault behaviors during the simulation. Moreover, a novel approach is presented for modeling realistic stuck-on/off defects based on oxide defects. These new defects proposed are required because digital stuck-at-fault models where a transistor is frozen in on-state or offstate may not apply well on analog circuits because even a slight variation could create deviations of several magnitudes. Then, for validating the proposed defects models, a novel predictive fault grouping based on faulty AC matrices is applied to group faults with equivalent behaviors. The proposed fault grouping method is computationally cheap because it avoids performing DC or transient simulations with faults injected and limits itself to faulty AC simulations. Using AC simulations results in two different methods that allow grouping faults with the same frequency response are presented. The first method is an AC-based grouping method that exploits the potentialities of the S-parameters ports. While the second is a Circle-based grouping based on the circle-fitting method applied to the extracted AC matrices. Finally, an open-source framework is presented for the fault injection and manipulation perspective. This framework relies on the shared semantics for reading, writing, or manipulating transistor-level designs. The ultimate goal of the framework is: reading an input design written in a specific syntax and then allowing to write the same design in another syntax. As a use case for the proposed framework, a process of analog fault injection is discussed. This activity requires adding, removing, or replacing nodes, components, or even entire sub-circuits. The framework is entirely written in C++, and its APIs are also interfaced with Python. The entire framework is open-source and available on GitHub. The last part of the thesis presents abstraction methodologies that can abstract transistor level models into Verilog-AMS models and Verilog- AMS piecewise and nonlinear models into C++. These abstracted models can be integrated into heterogeneous systems. The purpose of integration is the simulation of heterogeneous components embedded in a Virtual Platforms (VP) needs to be fast and accurate

THE LIABILITY OF THE AUTOMOBILE AND MOTORCYCLE MANUFACTURERS AND THEIR SUPPLIERS FOR DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS IN THE UNITED STATES COMPARED TO GERMANY

This thesis deals with the lability of automobile and motorcycle manufacturers, as well as their suppliers, in situations where a defective product causes a harmful event. Specifically, it compares the product liability laws of the Federal Republic of Germany to those of the United States of America. Before entering into the details of legal doctrine, the introductory note provides background information on the social and economic aspects of automobile use in those two countries. Next, Chapter I describes the liability regime governing claims against German motor vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers. Chapter II focuses on the comparable law in the United States and contains the conclusion that both laws are very similar, in part even identical, and only differ in a few aspects. It recommends that the German legislature should introduce capped punitive damages to its product liability law, and, with regard to American product liability law, it argues for the adoption of a clearer determination of the preemption doctrine by the United States Supreme Court. It further pleads against the federalization of United States product liability law which, as a part of tort law, traditionally belongs to the states

An analysis of field feedback in consumer electronics industry

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Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen

Responsible AI and Analytics for an Ethical and Inclusive Digitized Society

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Parts, Materials, and Processes Experience Summary

The ALERT program, a system for communicating common problems with parts, materials, and processes, is condensed and catalogued. Expanded information on selected topics is provided by relating the problem area (failure) to the cause, the investigations and findings, the suggestions for avoidance (inspections, screening tests, proper part applications), and failure analysis procedures. The basic objective of ALERT is the avoidance of the recurrence of parts, materials, and processed problems, thus improving the reliability of equipment produced for and used by the government

Characterization and Modelling of Composites, Volume II

Composites have been increasingly used in various structural components in the aerospace, marine, automotive, and wind energy sectors. Composites’ material characterization is a vital part of the product development and production process. Physical, mechanical, and chemical characterization helps developers to further their understanding of products and materials, thus ensuring quality control. Achieving an in-depth understanding and consequent improvement of the general performance of these materials, however, still requires complex material modeling and simulation tools, which are often multiscale and encompass multiphysics. This Special Issue is aimed at soliciting promising, recent developments in composite modeling, simulation, and characterization, in both design and manufacturing areas, including experimental as well as industrial-scale case studies. All submitted manuscripts will undergo a rigorous review and will only be considered for publication if they meet journal standards

Recent Advancements in Metallic Glasses

The Special Issue “Recent Advancements in Metallic Glasses” presents ten original papers, considering both scientific and application issues related to metallic glasses. The papers are devoted to general consideration of the formation and defects of the glassy structure, defect evolution due to heat treatment, deformation behavior upon compression and high-pressure torsion, amorphous-crystalline transformation, hydrogenation behavior, and biomedical applications