EnSilica Ltd

EnSilica is a leading fabless design house focused on custom ASIC design and supply for OEMs and system houses, and IC design services for companies with their own design teams. The company has world-class expertise in supplying custom analog, mixed signal and digital ICs to its international customers in the automotive, industrial, healthcare and consumer markets.

The company also offers a broad portfolio of core IP covering embedded processors, cryptography and radar & communications systems. EnSilica has a track record in delivering high quality solutions to demanding industry standards, including safety critical applications under the ISO26262 standard up to ASIL D.

EnSilica’s impressive record of success has been achieved working with customers ranging from start-ups to blue-chip companies. Their project portfolio ranges from module design to multi-million gate System-on-Chip. They measure their success by customer satisfaction and the quality of the solutions, services and designs they deliver. EnSilica’s approach is to develop long-term relationships with their customers and encourage strong partnerships with their suppliers, while providing meaningful and challenging work for their staff in a friendly, professional working environment. The company is headquartered in the UK and has offices in India and the US.

"EnSilica are pleased to be a founder member of the Arm Functional Safety Partner program. The combination of FuSa Arm IP combined with the experience and ability of EnSilica to deliver custom IC's for safety critical applications, is a major step forward in providing our customers with the product they need. We recognize the effort that Arm have made over recent years to align with the most demanding functional safety requirements and support their Arm Design Partners and end-customers in the most effective way."

Philip Faulkner, Director of Projects

Functional Safety Related Services

EnSilica offer OEMs the capability of developing SoC based solutions for their safety critical electronics, based on a leading-edge combination of robust FuSa compliant project management processes, first class suppliers and tools, and an outstanding team with all the necessary skills and experience to tackle the most ambitious goals in silicon technology. EnSilica can provide:

  • Automotive ISO 26262 or industrial IEC 61508 compliant SoC development and supply
  • Safety related IPs, especially ADAS radar processing sub-systems, for integration in third parties radar-on-chip SoCs or FPGAs
  • Design-for-safety consultancy, comprising:
    • Developing the safety concept at HW and SW level
    • Performing the safety analysis, FME(D)A, FTA, HW metrics
    • Safety mechanisms insertion
    • Verification of safety mechanisms through fault injection
    • Training

    Several safety relevant SoC have been developed in collaboration with top automotive and industrial OEMs, under IS026262 or IEC61508 compliance.

Functional Safety Resources

EnSilica adhere to international quality standards with an ISO9001:2015 certificate that guarantees all the business activities are performed in line with rigorous processes.

In addition, for ISO26262 projects compliance, EnSilica use a V-model based process for developing safety critical SoCs, from product conception to final volume production. This includes robust processes for documentation management, configuration management and traceability. Strict hardware and software verification processes are in place, with a consolidated approval flow assigning defined milestones for the different product maturity stages.

For the safety analysis, EnSilica use a standardized process starting with design teams brainstorming sessions moderated by a safety lead, aiming to investigate the possible system faults and consequences. Following this, a "system failure catalogue" is established, which will form the base for identifying the necessary safety mechanisms supported by standard techniques like the FME(D)A, FTA, etc.

EnSilica follows a rigorous EDA tools selection process for all the development and verification activities. Only first-class design tools that have passed the validation process required by the applicable safety standard are considered, covering areas such as; logic synthesis, simulation, fault injection, physical implementation and STA verification.

Regarding the internal organization, EnSilica maintain a project independent FuSa management structure, ensuring the necessary training and support to all the engineers involved in safety critical products.