Functional Safety Risks of Smart Power Devices due to EMI

Abstract

An important prerequisite for the safe operation of vehicles is that all electronic control units (ECUs) installed in the vehicle meet the applicable standards for functional safety and for electromagnetic compatibility. Integrated circuits (ICs) that are used within these ECUs are therefore often tested according to functional safety and EMC standards, but in most cases this is done consecutively. Therefore, we developed an extended direct power injection (DPI) test setup to characterize the functional safety and the electromagnetic interference (EMI) behavior of ICs simultaneously. Based on the results, we show that EMI can have a significant influence on the IC’s functional safety behavior.