CAN and CAN FD Functional Safety

With the high number of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) accompanied by an 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 CAN or a CAN FD 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 CAN transceivers and CAN controllers result in a more robust CAN or CAN FD communication network.

Memory (Flash/RAM) Error Detection and Correction

System Reset, Detect and Manage

GPIO ESD Protection/Peripheral Pin Select

Other Features

For additional information about Microchip’s functional safety-enabled products and supporting documentation, please visit our Functional Safety page.