Robust Embedded Systems:
Papers

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• "Automotive Electronic Reliability Prediction", William Denson and Mary Priore, SAE paper 870050. Automotive Electronics Reliability SP-696, SAE Warrendale PA, 1987, pp. 1-11.
  An alternative to MIL-HDBK-217 for automotive applications. Includes both equations and data values for representative automotive component reliability calculations.
  Details available. (dependability, electronic hardware; design)

• "Calculating semiconductor cost of ownership", Donald Denton, SAE paper 870057. Automotive Electronics Reliability SP-696, SAE Warrendale PA, 1987, pp. 61-67.
  Presents a model for the total cost of using an IC from purchase to warranty costs.
  Details available. (affordability, electronic hardware, manufacturing; dependability)

• "An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents", Nancy Leveson & Clark S. Turner, IEEE Computer, Vol. 26, No. 7, July 1993, pp. 18-41.
  This is an on-line reprint of a paper that describes how a medical system that relied on software safety instead of hardware interlocks killed several people with massive radiation overdoses. This is a must-read item for anyone involved in software on safety-critical systems.

• "Toward Integrated Methods for High-Assurance Systems", I-Ling Yen, Raymond Paul, Kinji Mori, IEEE Computer, Vol. 31, No. 4, April 1998, pp. 32-34.
  This is a high-level look at the different facets of high-assurance systems, and an intro to a special issue on that topic. The five key attributes identified are: reliability, availability, safety, security, and timeliness. Methods are said to be important, as is an integrated view of requirements. It is follwed by a series of project summaries:
  • "Passive safety in high-consequence systems." (argues that one needs both barriers and weak links to achieve safety)
  • "Long-life deep-space applcations." (says criteria for systems are: reliability, availability, maintainability, evolvability, affordability, miniaturization/integration)
  • "Challenges for continuously available systems." (says areas for innovation are commodity subsystems for fault tolerance, making software fault tolerance transparent, avoiding unplanned outages, and avoiding planned outages)
  • "Capturing safety-critical medical requirements." (recommends: separate problem specifications from solution specifications, acquire requirements directly from end users, observe use patterns in field studies, and model the environment)
  • "Applications in rapidly changing environments." (discusses: architecture-oriented assurance, online expansion, online maintenance, and fault tolerance)

Philip Koopman: koopman@cmu.edu