New ASIL-B Ready ISO 26262 Certified VESA DSC IP Cores Launched by Hardent

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Oct. 24, 2017, Oct. 24, 2017 – Hardent, a leading expert in VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) technology, has announced the expansion of its IP portfolio to include new ASIL-B ready ISO 26262 certified IP products for the automotive market. The VESA DSC 1.1 encoder is the first of Hardent's ASIL-B Ready IP products to be released. Certified by the Global Competence Center Functional Safety at SGS-TUV Saar GmbH, part of the SGS Group, these new IP solutions will enable automotive semiconductor/system suppliers and OEMs to create ISO 26262 compliant systems for safety-critical automotive display applications using the VESA DSC standard.

In recent years, the number of displays in cars has increased significantly. Cars now contain multiple video sources for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), infotainment, head-up displays (HUDs), and driver navigation systems. As the number of video sources in cars has grown, so too has the challenge of processing and transporting video around the vehicle. VESA DSC, a visually lossless video compression algorithm developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), is designed to decrease the bandwidth requirement by up to 3X, enabling the use of the existing physical interface infrastructure in a car with an increased number of displays at higher resolutions.

The multiplication of electronic components inside cars, and the increased consequences of their potential failure, have forced the adoption of significant safety measures for in-car electronics. Safety-critical automotive display applications, such as cockpit displays, backup cameras, etc., must meet strict functional safety requirements. "ISO 26262 is the cornerstone for developing any safety-critical system, but making a system ISO 26262 compliant can be a major challenge," explains Wolfgang Ruf, Automotive Functional Safety Expert at SGS-TUV Saar. "Hardent's VESA DSC IP cores have undergone a comprehensive ISO 26262 certification process to ensure that OEMs can achieve the automotive safety integrity levels (ASILs) needed for automotive display applications using VESA DSC technology."

The VESA DSC algorithm is supplied by Hardent in the form of an IP (Intellectual Property) core made available to automotive semiconductor suppliers and OEMs manufacturing the electronic components for automotive display applications. "VESA Display Stream Compression offers a number of significant benefits to support current and future trends for automotive display applications," says Alain Legault, VP IP Products at Hardent. "By introducing ASIL-B ready IP products to our portfolio, we are supporting an important automotive ecosystem requirement."

The IP contains additional safety features such as self-check, control output diagnostics, and RAM error-correcting code (ECC) which detects transient and permanent faults that may affect the functionality, and report them to the host system to inform the driver. These safety features are designed to make the DSC IP core ASIL-B ready, as outlined by the ISO 26262 standard.

Hardent's ASIL-B Ready ISO 26262 VESA DSC 1.1 encoder IP core is available now. For more information about using VESA DSC for automotive display applications, visit Hardent's website.

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