OREANDA-NEWS. Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, is easing the design complexity for sophisticated automotive systems with its new “Safety and Security Support Program for Automotive”, contributing to a safe and secure driving experience. Designed to reduce the burden on system manufacturers, the new initiative simplifies the implementation of functional safety and security features through an integrated package solution that incorporates ISO26262-certified Renesas automotive semiconductor products, software, analytic tools, work products, instruction, consulting, and more.

Functional safety and security are indispensable for reducing risk factors associated with the reliability and safety of autonomous driving systems. Autonomous emergency braking, automatic tracking, and other operation support systems require more sophisticated automotive electronic control units (ECUs) with higher performance to support the higher control functionality. Likewise, self-driving vehicle control requires complex electronic systems, while at the same time achieving a high level of safety.

The vehicle control required for self-driving vehicles must work cooperatively with infrastructure information from external sources, such as other vehicles and traffic signals, so communication with the vehicle’s surroundings becomes an important factor. With this communication comes new security considerations. Greater awareness of the security risks associated with these types of external vehicle communications is driving a global move toward standardization. The new security standards incorporate elements such as threat analysis and risk analysis, and achieving compliance is expected to impose an increasing development burden moving forward.

With the achievement of the ISO 26262 international functional safety standard for electric and electronic automotive systems, the associated development burden on system manufacturers has increased by approximately 40 to 50 percent (Renesas estimate). It requires several actions in addition to non-safety and security actions, including constructing a safety concept, quantitative and qualitative safety analysis, and confirmation measures. There is also a move to develop the second edition of the ISO 26262 standard, which will result in additional requirements and further development burden increase on manufacturers.

To address the growing demands on system manufacturers to implement these complex systems, Renesas has launched the Safety and Security Support Program for Automotive as a new type of solution that leverages the company’s core expertise in functional safety and security technology to achieve a new level of automotive safety and security, including reducing the development burden, while contributing to the early realization of self-driving vehicles. The program will cover Renesas’ automotive semiconductor products, beginning with a solution for body systems employing the RH850 Family of microcontrollers (MCUs). The first offering will be available from January 30, 2015.

About Renesas Electronics Corporation

Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), the world's number one supplier of microcontrollers, is a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions including microcontrollers, SoC solutions and a broad range of analog and power devices. Business operations began as Renesas Electronics in April 2010 through the integration of NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723) and Renesas Technology Corp., with operations spanning research, development, design and manufacturing for a wide range of applications. Headquartered in Japan, Renesas Electronics has subsidiaries in approximately 20 countries worldwide.