Reliability is a growing concern in complex systems. There is an increasing need to understand the failure modes and the overall reliability characteristics of large SoCs which are built using IP components from diverse sources. IP providers must be able to specify the way silicon failures (e.g. single bit upsets, permanent faults) affect the operation of their IP components. This is especially challenging for providers of soft IP because the designs are often extremely configurable and the high-level failure mechanisms (e.g. interrupts, reboots, etc.) must be expressed independently of the underlying implementation technology (e.g. FPGA, ASIC, etc.).

RIIF (Reliability Information Interchange Format) is a new standard language which enables designers to specify the failure characteristics and reliability requirements for simple and complex systems.  This language enables EDA tools to analyze reliability models and to compute the failure rates for complex systems.

The RIIF Initiative objective is the constant improvement of the language to support the decision makers during all phases of a complex system design.

A modern language, provided with all advanced mechanisms aimed at simplifying the life of system designers is our goal.

A formal language makes it possible for suppliers and consumers to exchange reliability information in a consistent fashion and to use this information to build accurate reliability models. The RIIF language is not tied to a specific application domain or implementation technology.

The language is only the key-core of a more comprehensive constellation of tools and documents that will be developed, ever with people in mind.