Functional Safety Management
Planning, coordination, tracking, confirmation measures, audits, assessments, and safety-case support.
Full Functional Safety Lifecycle Support
Functional Safety is not a single activity at the end of development. It is a complete engineering lifecycle that must be planned, executed, documented, verified, and confirmed from the earliest concept phase through production and operation.
Root Cause Technologies supports companies across the complete automotive/rail/industrial Functional Safety lifecycle. Whether you need end-to-end ownership, temporary expert support, independent review, or support for specific work products, we help your teams apply safety engineering in a practical, structured, and standards-oriented way.
Our services cover both Functional Safety Management and Functional Safety Engineering, enabling us to support the organizational, process, and technical aspects of safety-critical development.
Our Functional Safety Services
Concept Phase Engineering
Item definition, HARA, safety goals, Functional Safety Concept, and early safety argumentation.
System Safety Engineering
Technical Safety Concept, safety architecture, safety requirement decomposition, interface definition, and system-level analysis.
Semiconductor & FPGA Safety
Safety concept, hardware safety requirements, FPGA safety architecture, FMEDA support, safety mechanisms, diagnostic coverage, and safety manual support.
Embedded Software Safety
Software safety requirements, safety architecture, embedded safety mechanisms, software analysis, traceability, and verification support.
Verification & Validation
Safety verification planning, test strategy, requirement-based testing, fault injection, evidence creation, and validation support.
Assessment & Release Readiness
Safety reviews, audits, gap analysis, assessment preparation, safety-case structuring, and release support.
Functional Safety Engineering Along the V-Model
The V-Model is central to safety-critical automotive development. On the left side, safety requirements are defined and decomposed. At the bottom, the system is implemented. On the right side, verification and validation activities demonstrate that the implementation satisfies the intended safety requirements.
Root Cause Technologies provides safety engineering support at every stage of this lifecycle.
Our Functional Safety Engineering Activities
1
Concept Phase
The concept phase defines what must be made safe, why it must be safe, and which safety goals need to be achieved.
Item Definition
Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment
Safety Goals
Functional Safety Concept
Initial Safety Argumentation
2
System-Level Safety Engineering
At system level, safety goals are transformed into technical safety requirements and system architecture decisions.
Technical Safety Concept
Safety Architecture Support
Safety Requirement Decomposition
Interface and Assumption Management
Failure Analysis Support
3
Semiconductor, FPGA & Hardware Safety Engineering
Safety must be considered at architecture, design, implementation, and verification levels for automotive semiconductor and FPGA development.
Semiconductor Safety Concept
FPGA Functional Safety Engineering
Hardware Safety Requirements
Safety Mechanism Definition
Hardware Safety Analysis
Dependent Failure Analysis
Safety Manual and Integration Guidance
4
Software & Embedded Safety Engineering
Close alignment between hardware, FPGA, firmware, embedded software, and system-level behavior is essential for safety.
Software Safety Requirements
Embedded Safety Architecture
Safety Mechanism Implementation Support
Software Safety Analysis
Traceability
Tool and Process Support
5
Verification & Validation
Verification and validation prove that safety requirements have been implemented correctly and that the system behaves safely in the intended context.
Safety Verification Planning
Requirement-Based Testing
Hardware, FPGA, and Software Verification
Safety Mechanism Verification
Fault Injection and Robustness Testing
Validation Against Safety Goals
6
Confirmation, Assessment & Release Support
Before release, safety activities must be reviewed, confirmed, and documented.
Safety Reviews
Functional Safety Audits
Assessment Preparation
Safety Case and Evidence Compilation
Release Readiness Support
7
Production, Operation & Change Management
Functional Safety continues after development to preserve the safety integrity of the product.
Production Release Support
Change Impact Analysis
Safety Issue Management
Lifecycle Maintenance