Delphi Secured Microcontroller Architecture

As electronics take on ever-increasing roles in automotive systems, greater scrutiny will be placed on those electronics that are employed in control systems. X-By-Wire systems, that is, steer- and/or brake-by-wire systems will control chassis functions without the need for mechanical backup. These systems will have distributed fault-tolerant and fail-safe architectures and may require new standards in communication protocols between nodes (nodes can be considered as communication relay points). At the nodes, the “host” application Electronic Controller Unit (ECU) will play a pivotal role in assessing its own viability. The microcontroller architecture proposed in this paper focuses on ensuring thorough detection of hardware faults in the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and related circuits, thus providing a generic fail-silent building block for embedded systems. Embedded controllers that implement the Delphi Secured Microcontroller Architecture will provide high deterministic fault coverage with relatively low complexity.