• ISO 26262
• Functional Safety
• Memory analysis

Nowadays, everywhere you can think of, we are surrounded by an increasing number of electrical and electronic devices and systems. Many of these technologies can potentially cause harm to humans, animals or the environment if no proper countermeasures are taken to reduce the risk to a tolerable level.
As a consequence, safety is a critical issue for the development of emerging technology and its embedding in safety-related systems dedicated to mass production.
With this in mind, Functional Safety analyses become a key activity to ensure the reliability of Electrical, Electronic and Programmable Electronic circuits controlling complex systems, essential for everyday life.
In the automotive domain, the ISO 26262 safety standard has been introduced to provide appropriate requirements and processes. More specifically, the standard defines the system development process that must be carried out to achieve a system that can be considered acceptably safe.
Hundreds of microprocessors are currently present in most of the new automobiles, from simple sensor/actuator controller to sophisticate engine control computing functions. Traditionally, on-chip SRAM has been used to service the need of these processors.
This document presents a detailed analysis of SRAM modules - enclosed in Renesas RH850 MCU family targeting Automotive applications - from an ISO 26262 perspective and aims to address the weaknesses that can lead to intolerable level of risk when using the MCU in a target application.
The analysis is explained throughout the whole life-cycle, from the derivation of the safety requirement specifications to the assessment of the weaknesses of the design. Furthermore, eligible countermeasures to surmount what highlighted have been proposed and estimated.