AI Inference & Acceleration

AI Guard

aiguard is a neural-network-output plausibility / out-of-distribution (OOD) monitor,

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ASIL-B

target

93.40%

SPFM

90.19%

LFM

PASS

FMEDA

1.3K

gates

1.0.0

version

The deliverable

What you’re licensing

aiguard is a neural-network-output plausibility / out-of-distribution (OOD) monitor, It is delivered as a licensable soft-IP block engineered as an ASIL-B Safety Element out of Context — not just RTL, but the complete functional-safety work package needed to carry it into an ISO 26262 program:

Synthesizable RTL

Portable, vendor-neutral SystemVerilog that drops onto your existing SoC fabric — no foundry or EDA-tool lock-in.

Per-IP FMEDA report

SPFM / LFM / PMHF computed against the ASIL target per ISO 26262-5 — the quantitative analysis your assessor asks for.

Safety manual

Assumptions of use, the safety mechanisms and their diagnostic coverage — written to drop straight into your safety case.

IP-XACT + integration docs

A machine-readable descriptor plus register and integration documentation for fast, low-risk bring-up.

Self-checking testbench

A self-checking (crypto: bit-exact) testbench and a one-command build, so you can reproduce every claim on day one.

What it is

ai_guard is a neural-network-output plausibility / out-of-distribution (OOD) monitor, delivered as synthesizable SystemVerilog soft-IP with an APB4-lite control interface and built-in ISO 26262 (ASIL-B) safety instrumentation.

Key Features

F1 per-element range/bounds check against learned/physical limits
F2 out-of-distribution via diagonal-precision Mahalanobis distance to the nearest class mean
F3 frame-to-frame temporal-consistency (implausible-jump) detect
Observe-only AXI4-Stream tap — never in the inference datapath, no back-pressure
Config-register parity + duplicate-DMR control FSM (guard self-protection)

Standards & Compliance

ISO 21448 (SOTIF) + ISO 26262 (ASIL-B), pairs with npu_act / lm_head / safety_island

Functional Safety

ASIL-B (SEooC) · SPFM 93.40% · LFM 90.19% · PASS

ISO 26262:2018 · FMEDA available · Safety Manual included

Register Map

Offset	Register	Description
`0x00`	CTRL	RW [0]=EN, [1]=BND_CHK, [2]=OOD_CHK, [3]=TMP_CHK
`0x04`	OUT_MIN	RW [15:0] signed lower bound for every output element (F1)
`0x08`	OUT_MAX	RW [15:0] signed upper bound for every output element (F1)
`0x0C`	OOD_THR	RW [31:0] unsigned Mahalanobis distance threshold (F2)
`0x10`	DELTA_MX	RW [15:0] unsigned max \|x_i – prev_x_i\| per element (F3)

…13 more registers — see datasheet for the full table.

Getting Started

// Minimal instantiation
ai_guard #(
  .ADDR_W(6)
) u_ai_guard (
  .clk       (clk),
  .rst_n     (rst_n),
  // APB4
  .p_paddr   (paddr),
  .p_psel    (psel),
  .p_penable (penable),
  .p_pwrite  (pwrite),
  .p_pwdata  (pwdata),
  .p_prdata  (prdata),
  .p_pready  (pready),
  // Safety
  .err_clear (1'b0),
  .err_valid (err_valid),
  .err_code  (err_code)
);

Configure via the CTRL register after reset to enable the IP and set operating parameters. Monitor err_valid / err_code for any safety faults reported by the built-in safety monitor.

Applications

Where it fits

Typically deployed in safety-critical edge inference — ADAS, autonomous robotics, and machine vision.

The case

Why license it, not build it

Skip 12–18 months

The FMEDA and the safety case are already generated. You integrate a finished safety element — you don’t stand up a safety-IP program to originate one.

One vendor, one safety story

Every block in the catalog shares the same safety architecture, fault-reaction model, and FMEDA methodology — so subsystems roll up cleanly.

Verified, not vapor

The RTL builds and passes today; the safety metrics come from analysis and fault injection against real RTL, not a datasheet promise.

Interested in AI Guard?

Pricing, the per-IP FMEDA, safety manual, and RTL data room are shared under a mutual NDA.

Talk to us →See related IP

Figures are pre-silicon engineering-grade estimates for a Safety Element out of Context (SEooC); final ASIL sign-off is the integrator’s, supported under NDA. FMEDA and Safety Manual available under NDA.

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