Peter P. wrote:

> Alan B. Pearce <A.B.Pearce <at> rl.ac.uk> writes:
>> "Freescale is now shipping its popular S12 16-bit automotive
>> microcontrollers (MCUs) at a rate of more than 100 million
>> units a year with an exceptionally low defect rate of less
>> than one part per million. "
 
> But the fun is to guess which one of those is bad. Because by bad they do
> not mean a missing pin or something that can be found on first test ...
> and these go into cars. Ahem. ABS brakes in dragster mode ? Activate
> immobilizer every 13th day ? WHat are the testing requirements for
> automotive silicon ? Military devices undergo a lot of testing but they
> have a budget. What's the budget on car stuff (zero) and how many are
> there (literally millions). So what do the manufacturers do, fingers
> crossed and pay insurance ? 

I don't know, but I assume staged testing: the component manufacturers do
some testing on their components, the modules made of those components get
some unit testing after mounting, hopefully they test the ABS functionality
on the mounted car before selling it... 

In the end, cars are a consumer item. What do you want? Cars made out of
space-grade components? :)

Gerhard

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