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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsNvidia hired Riccardo Mariani, formerly Intel’s chief functional safety technologist and an Intel Fellow, as its vice president of industry safety, according to an EE Times report published July 18, 2019. The newly created role was intended to coordinate safety strategy across areas such as automotive, robotics and IoT. The report describes a historical appointment; it does not establish Mariani’s current job or Nvidia’s safety results.
Who is Riccardo Mariani?
EE Times reported that Mariani joined Intel when it acquired Yogitech in 2016. Mariani had co-founded Yogitech and served as its chief technology officer. The report credited him with inventing Yogitech’s faultRobust technology and related products, and with leading work to certify semiconductor intellectual property for high safety-integrity levels and to create electronic-design-automation tools for functional safety.
At Intel, he became the company’s chief functional safety technologist and an Intel Fellow. Those credentials matter to the appointment because his work had touched both semiconductor design and the processes used to assess safety in complex systems.
Why did Nvidia hire an Intel safety executive?
Nvidia described the new vice president of industry safety role as a way to develop an “overarching safety view across multiple domains and technologies.” The stated aim was coordination across business units as intelligent systems extended beyond a single product category. This was the purpose of the hire as described in 2019, not evidence that the appointment produced measurable safety improvements.
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Mariani said he chose Nvidia because of what he viewed as the company’s commitment to safety and its presence in safety-critical automotive and embedded markets. That was his stated rationale, not an independent assessment of Nvidia’s safety performance.
What would his role involve?
Mariani described a remit spanning strategy, engineering and external engagement. He said he would:
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- “drive safety alignment across business units (Auto, Robotics, IoT, etc.)”
- Develop shared safety strategies, processes, architectures and products that could be leveraged across hardware and software platforms.
- Support the existing team in discussing safety with customers, partners, regulatory agencies and government.
- Continue work on the “overall ‘end-to-end dependability’ aspect of intelligent systems.”
He framed dependable systems as requiring several properties to coexist: “All these properties must coexist to provide trustable, deterministic and safe services to the community.” The EE Times report discussed functional safety alongside reliability, availability, maintainability, security and time sensitivity. His description signals a cross-system approach: safety cannot be considered only within an isolated component when hardware and software interact.
What does a functional safety expert do?
In this story, functional safety expertise meant working on how electronic systems are designed and assessed so that hazards associated with their operation are addressed. Mariani’s reported experience covered semiconductor IP, design tools and safety processes, while the Nvidia role was broader: coordinating approaches across business units and technology platforms.
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That distinction is important. The report describes an organizational remit and intended work, not a specific product review, certification decision or demonstration of safer system behavior.
Why were ISO 26262 and SOTIF part of the story?
Mariani said he would represent Nvidia in standards work involving ISO 26262, ISO 21448 (SOTIF) and IEC 61508, among others. EE Times identifies ISO 26262 as a road-vehicle functional-safety standard and ISO 21448 as Safety of the Intended Functionality, or SOTIF.
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In the report’s explanation, SOTIF addresses certain unreasonable risks in advanced driver-assistance and autonomous-driving systems that can arise even when there is no hardware or software malfunction. Mariani’s position was that ISO 26262 alone was not enough to address the safety questions raised by such systems. This is a high-level explanation, not a complete account of either standard or their technical scope.
The report also identified Mariani as vice president for IEEE Computer Society standardization activities and chair of its Special Technical Community on Reliable, Safe, Secure and Time Deterministic Intelligent Systems. His standards work was part of the background to the appointment, rather than proof of a particular Nvidia compliance or certification outcome.
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What the 2019 report does—and does not—establish
The EE Times article documents Nvidia’s hiring announcement and the role’s stated purpose at that time. It does not establish Mariani’s current employment or title, nor does it provide quantified safety outcomes attributable to his hire. Read “Nvidia poaches Intel safety guru” as a report on a 2019 appointment and its intended organizational remit, not as current staffing news or an assessment of Nvidia’s safety record.
Read the EE Times report, “Nvidia Poaches Intel Safety Guru” (July 18, 2019).
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