OREANDA-NEWS. Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502)  announced the launch of "TB9044FNG", a general-purpose system power IC with multiple outputs achieving functional safety for automotive applications. Sample shipments start today, with the mass production scheduled to start in October, 2017.

More and more safety-critical automotive systems, such as electric power steering (EPS) and braking, are required to meet the requirements of ASIL-D, the highest automotive safety integrity level prescribed in the ISO 26262 functional safety standards.

The new IC integrates various failure detection functions, such as high-voltage and low-voltage detection and overheat detection of power supply circuit, to monitor against the IC’s own failure, and a watchdog timer to monitor failure detection of the external microcomputer. An initial diagnosis circuit to detect latent faults in the failure detection circuits is also incorporated to secure higher functional safety.

Toshiba has also carried out a range of functional safety analyses to simulate system failures and will provide customers with documentation, such as functional safety FMEDA, to support overall safety analysis and design.