Automotive Ethernet with Comcores – Safety, Quality and ASIL certification of IP

By Comcores

October 13, 2025

Introduction

In today’s automotive industry, safety and reliability are non-negotiable. With the increasing complexity of electronic systems in modern vehicles, ensuring compliance with ISO 26262 and Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) requirements is a demanding aspect of development. At Comcores, we embrace these challenges head-on, combining rigorous processes with a strong commitment to product quality.

Our Commitment to Product Quality

At Comcores, quality is not just a checkbox, but a foundation of how we build technology. Our Product Development Process is designed to support compliance and robustness, and it ensures a consistent and efficient execution of development projects by:

• Capturing both functional and safety requirements at the earliest stages
• Maintaining traceability links from requirements to implementation and test cases throughout the project lifecycle
• Ensuring requirements are clear, testable, and aligned with ASIL objectives
• Detecting risks through structured reviews
• Tracking design and implementation with attention to modularity and error handling
• Ensuring that testing is not just an afterthought, but instead woven into every step of the project, including:
  • Stepwise bring-up and integration activities
  • Unit testing at the smallest functional blocks
  • Simulation of RTL modules and components
  • System testing to validate end-to-end performance under real-world conditions in FPGA setups
• Including continuous improvement embedded in every project stage by using lessons learned from previous projects

ISO 26262 at Comcores

Throughout above activities the ISO 26262 compliant safety goals and requirements are kept in focus to ensure that Comcores products are ready to be integrated into a ASIL compliant system – that includes the essential safety validation activities relevant for our products to confirm compliance with defined safety goals.

Most Comcores products are developed as a safety element out of context (SEooC), as we use standardized interfaces and functions that can be used in multiple different contexts. Our ASIL Ready SEooC IP cores are developed with ISO 26262 processes and safety artifacts, but the final ASIL certification is performed by our customers at system level.

A Comcores development project includes the following ISO 26262 relevant outputs:

• Safety Requirements as part of the overall Requirement Specification
• Safety Architecture as part of the overall Design Specification
• FMEDA Report (Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis) that lists the identified failure modes and the corresponding mitigation actions
• Safety Manual with the assumption of use together with information about how to safely use the product, limitations, and integration guides to stay within the assumed ASIL level
• Verification and validation reports including details about how the product has been tested and clear traceability to the requirements

With this document package our customers are well equipped to perform the actual ASIL certification on a higher level (typically the chip or system, where Comcores product will be integrated).

Optionally Comcores also offer full ASIL certification of IP solutions. This is an additional process that will require good alignment with the customer about the use cases for the IP solution.

Conclusion

ASIL compliance is complex, but with the right mindset, processes, and commitment to quality, it becomes a driver of excellence rather than a barrier. At Comcores, we take pride in not only overcoming these challenges but in delivering ASIL Ready IP solutions that our customers can trust — from requirements, through development, to rigorous testing and validation.

By providing comprehensive safety documentation, proven verification results, and ASIL Ready SEooC IP cores, Comcores enables our customers to achieve ISO 26262 certification faster and with greater confidence.