Cadence JasperGold Formal Verification Platform Enables Hitachi to Develop Measures for Fault Avoidance to Comply with IEC 61508 Series SIL 4 Requirements

Hitachi uses Cadence formal verification technologies to improve verification methodology for its ν COSS S-zero functional safety controller

SAN JOSE, Calif., 05 Jul 2018 -- Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) today announced that Hitachi, Ltd. has used the Cadence® JasperGold® Formal Verification Platform to develop νCOSS® S-zero®, an industrial facilities functional safety controller that has been certified for Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 3 in accordance with the International Electrotechnical Commission® (IEC) 61508 Series functional safety standard. Through use of the Cadence technologies, Hitachi successfully developed measures for fault avoidance to comply with IEC 61508 Series SIL 4 requirements, ensuring that its functional safety controller operates correctly in response to its inputs and maintains safety.

Hitachi used the JasperGold platform to easily adopt formal methods and perform the multiple hardware verification tasks needed to deliver a robust, fail-safe mechanism that meets IEC 61508 safety requirements. Use of the Cadence technologies helped Hitachi verify hardware calculation elements that were developed internally for system-specific controls. The JasperGold platform’s ProofCore technology, which analyzes the design under test (DUT), helped Hitachi improve its verification environment to ensure that the functional safety controller operates correctly in response to its inputs while maintaining safety. Hitachi also incorporated Cadence simulation and emulation solutions with the JasperGold platform to achieve 100 percent verification of the safety requirements.

“Functional safety compliance is critical for industrial facilities systems and our customers,” said Masahiro Shiraishi, group leader engineer of Control System Platform Division, Omika Works at Hitachi, Ltd. “When compared with our previous verification methodology that was based on dynamic simulation, our new formal methodology based on the Cadence JasperGold platform allowed us to identify corner case bugs much earlier. Our close collaboration with Cadence lets our customers confidently adopt our industrial facilities functional safety controller knowing that it meets IEC 61508 compliance requirements.”

For more information on the JasperGold platform, please visit www.cadence.com/go/jaspergoldfs.

The JasperGold Formal Verification Platform is part of the Cadence Verification Suite. It supports the company’s System Design Enablement strategy, which enables system and semiconductor companies to create complete, differentiated end products more efficiently. The Cadence Verification Suite is comprised of the best-in-class JasperGold, Xcelium^™, Palladium^® Z1 and Protium^™ S1 core engines, verification fabric technologies and solutions that increase design quality and throughput, fulfilling verification requirements for a wide variety of applications and vertical segments.

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