SE Why the Semiconductor Industry Needs A Common Language For Functional Safety

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As semiconductor devices become increasingly central to automotive, industrial, aerospace, medical, and other safety-critical applications, functional safety has evolved from a specialized engineering discipline into a fundamental design requirement. The challenge is no longer simply implementing safety mechanisms—it is managing the safety-related information that must be created, shared, reviewed, and maintained throughout the development lifecycle. Today, much of that information exists in spreadsheets, proprietary databases, custom scripts, and tool-specific formats. Functional safety analyses such as Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA), Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), and Diagnostic Failure Analysis (DFA) are often recreated or manually translated as they move between organizations, engineering teams, and EDA tools. The result is duplicated effort, limited interoperability, reduced traceability and confidence, and an increased risk of inconsistencies. As designs become more complex and supply chains more distributed, these challenges only continue to grow. The industry has long benefited from standards that define what is required to achieve functional safety. Standards such as ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 provide comprehensive guidance for developing safe electronic systems and remain the framework for establishing functional safety compliance. What these standards intentionally do not define is how safety data should be represented and exchanged across the many organizations and tools involved in product development. That gap has become increasingly apparent. Moving Beyond Documents
Modern semiconductor development relies heavily on automated tool chains to manage design, verification, and manufacturing data. In comparison, managing functional safety information is often still a primarily document-centric process. This creates unnecessary barriers. Engineers frequently spend valuable time translating and interpreting data rather than focusing on high-value safety analysis.  Furthermore, tool vendors often need to develop custom interfaces for proprietary formats, while suppliers and customers frequently rely on exchange methods that require extra discussion for alignment, complicating automated validation. The industry needs a common, implementation-level language for functional safety data—one that enables safety information to move through the development ecosystem with the same level of consistency as design and verification data. Introducing the Functional Safety Language
The Accellera Functional Safety Working Group developed the Functional Safety Language Standard (FSL) to address this need. FSL is designed to provide a standardized language and data model for creating and representing functional safety information, focusing initially on FMEDA content with the long-term goal of accommodating related analyses such as FTA and DFA. Rather than replacing existing safety standards, FSL complements them by providing a consistent way to capture, exchange, and integrate the data they require. The objective is straightforward: enable interoperability, automation, and traceability throughout the safety development lifecycle. With a common representation of safety information, organizations can more easily exchange data between EDA tools, suppliers, IP providers, semiconductor companies, and system integrators without relying on proprietary formats or extensive manual conversion. Benefits Across the Development Lifecycle
Standardizing functional safety data provides value across multiple engineering disciplines.

• For safety engineers, FSL offers a structured and consistent way to create and maintain FMEDA information while improving traceability as designs evolve.
• For design and verification teams, it enables tighter integration between safety analyses and implementation, allowing safety intent to remain connected with the underlying design throughout development.
• For tool vendors, a standardized language reduces the need to develop and maintain numerous proprietary interfaces, making it easier to deliver interoperable solutions.
• For the broader supply chain, FSL provides a consistent mechanism for exchanging safety information while preserving data integrity and reducing opportunities for translation errors.

These improvements help organizations scale functional safety activities as products become increasingly sophisticated. A Foundation for Future Automation
One of the most significant opportunities presented by FSL is its potential to enable greater automation. As engineering organizations continue to integrate AI-assisted workflows, digital engineering practices, and increasingly sophisticated verification methodologies, standardized machine-readable data becomes even more important. A common representation of functional safety information creates opportunities for improved consistency, automated validation, enhanced traceability, and more efficient integration with existing design and verification flows. The goal is not simply to replace spreadsheets with another file format. It is to establish a foundation upon which future functional safety workflows can continue to evolve. Help Shape the Standard
The Accellera Functional Safety Working Group believes industry standards are strongest when developed through broad community participation. That is why the Functional Safety Language (FSL) 1.0 Draft Standard is now available for public review. We encourage the industry to review the specification and submit comments through August 14. Feedback can be provided through the Functional Safety Community Forum. To learn more about the standard, visit the Functional Safety Working Group page. Download the Functional Safety Language Standard Draft 1.0 here. Join the Journey
Our activities will officially resume in September to expand the standard with supplemental materials, a formal exchange format, and additional safety topics to extend the FSL capabilities. We warmly invite interested companies and engineering professionals to join the Functional Safety Working Group to help drive these future milestones. If your company is not already a member of Accellera, more information on how to join can be found on the Accellera website. The post Why the Semiconductor Industry Needs A Common Language For Functional Safety appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.

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