Big Challenges In Verifying Cyber-Physical Systems

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss cyber-physical systems and how to verify them with Jean-Marie Brunet, senior director for the Emulation Division at Siemens EDA; Frank Schirrmeister, senior group director for solution marketing at Cadence; Maurizio Griva, R&D Manager at Reply; and Laurent Maillet-Contoz, system and architect specialist at STMicroelectronics. This discussion was held at the recent Design Automation and Test In Europe (DATE) conference. SE: What are cyber-physical systems? Schirrmeister: The accepted definition is, 'It's a computer system in which a mechanism is controlled or monitored by computer based algorithms. So physical and software components are deeply intertwined, and it's able to operate on different spatial and temporal scales, exhibit multiple district behavioral modalities and interact with each other in ways that change with context. Examples include smart grid, automotive, autonomous automotive systems, medical/industrial robotics, and automated pilot.' So it's really way beyond electronics, in an area we refer to as computational software. Hardware/software was a topic in the last decade, where we all worried about how hardware and software interact.