LIN Functional Safety

With the high number of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) accompanied by increasing complexity of functions in today’s cars, functional safety is very important. The growing importance of safety and driver assistance systems in modern cars intensifies the need for more robust and dependable electronic components. Risks resulting from hardware, random failures or systematic hardware/software errors must be reduced as far as reasonably practicable throughout the product’s foreseeable lifetime.

There are guidelines and standards for the process, the technology and the methods used for the implementation of functional safety. Functional safety means the prevention of unacceptable risks that can arise from hazards caused by malfunctions in electrical or electronic systems, such as a LIN network. As these networks are intended to support data exchange amongst safety-critical functions, the risk of transmitting incorrect data in a network can be reduced dramatically by implementing robust safety measures in the system. As described below, the safety measures available in our LIN transceivers and LIN controllers result in a more robust LIN communication network.