This is a paper published in Embedded World 2015, covering various areas about how chip designers can improve the reliability of a SoC (System-on-Chip) design. It also cover various functional safety related features in the Cortex-M7 processor, as well as a number of design considerations including software and certifications.
Abstract— Reliability is vital for many embedded applications including industrial controllers and automotive electronics. There are many well-established techniques for creating reliable high-end control systems, and now these techniques are also appearing in small embedded systems including many microcontroller products based on ARM processors. This whitepaper covers an overview of system design techniques and processor specific features that are commonly used in such applications including dual-core lock-step and the processor’s internal memory protection (e.g. parity, ECC), as well as system level enhancements like bus level timeout monitors and hardware monitoring units. The whitepaper also covers various areas that chip designers need to watch out for when developing their designs, such as how these features impact on system behavior.