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[FAQ] Functional Safety for Precision Amplifiers

What is functional safety?

Functional safety standards like International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 615081 and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 262622 require that semiconductor device manufacturers address both systematic and random hardware failures. Systematic failures are managed and mitigated by following rigorous development processes. Random hardware failures must adhere to specified quantitative metrics to meet hardware safety integrity levels (SILs) or automotive SILs (ASILs). 

There are many automotive systems that require functional safety. As defined by ISO 262622 the term ASIL stands for Automotive Safety Integrity Level, and it has an associated letter from A to D. ASIL A has the lowest Safety Integrity Level, and ASIL D has the highest Safety Integrity Level. Not all circuits in a car have an ASIL assigned. A simple circuit, such as a courtesy interior light, may not have a functional safety requirement and therefore no ASIL required.

The term SIL stands for Safety Integrity Level and applies to non-automotive applications where functional safety is required, such as circuits required for precise measurements during the manufacture of a potentially dangerous product.  

Circuits with ASIL or SIL requirements may need information from a product manufacturer before a particular component is designed in. Products at Texas Instruments are divided into three functional safety categories as defined in Table 1 based on the support and documentation provided.

Table 1: Functional safety categories at Texas Instruments

Where can I read functional safety information for a given product?

Functional safety information can be accessed on a TI product folder page. Once on the page scroll down to the "Technical documentation" section and navigate to the link of type "Functional safety information" as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Functional safety information as found in a product folder

What devices are Functional Safety-Capable?

Devices can be filtered by their functional safety level in TI's parametric search tool. Below you'll find links for prefiltered parametric searches of Functional Safety-Capable devices that fall under the PRAMPs umbrella:

Figure 2: Parametric table with functional safety filter highlighted

What if a product I'm interested isn't Functional Safety-Capable? 

For PRAMPs devices contact Jacob Fattakhov (j-fattakhov@TI.com), the product line's functional safety champion.

 

Where can I find more comprehensive information about functional safety?

TI.com/functionalsafety