ISO 26262 is the international standard for the functional safety of electrical and electronic (E/E) systems in road vehicles. Its primary objective is to mitigate risks by defining safety-related processes and methods. The rigor and specific requirements of these processes are tailored based on the system's Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL), which represents its criticality. In contrast, Automotive SPICE (ASPICE) is a process assessment model used to evaluate the capability and maturity of a supplier's development processes. The goal of an ASPICE assessment is to determine the quality of the processes themselves, and its requirements are applied uniformly, independent of the product's specific safety criticality or ASIL.

A. This statement incorrectly reverses the roles of the standards, claiming ISO 26262 is independent of criticality and ASPICE is dependent on it.

C. This statement is incorrect for both standards, claiming ISO 26262 is independent of ASIL and ASPICE is dependent on criticality.

D. This statement incorrectly assigns the objective of determining process capability to ISO 26262; this is the primary objective of ASPICE.

---

1. ISTQB® Certified Tester Foundation Level Automotive Software Tester Syllabus Version 1.0 (2018).

Section 1.3.1, ISO 26262, page 10: "The standard defines the requirements for the processes and the work products for the development of safety-related E/E systems... The required activities and work products depend on the Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL)." This confirms that ISO 26262 requirements are dependent on criticality (ASIL).

Section 1.3.2, Automotive SPICE (ASPICE), page 11: "Automotive SPICE is a framework for assessing the capability of the development processes for software-based systems... The process assessment model is used to perform a conformity assessment of the processes of an organization." This confirms ASPICE's objective is to assess process capability.

2. ISO 26262-1:2018, "Road vehicles — Functional safety — Part 1: Vocabulary".

Section 3.8, Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL): The standard defines ASIL as the mechanism for specifying "the item's or element's necessary requirements of ISO 26262 and safety measures to apply for avoiding an unreasonable residual risk." This establishes the direct link between criticality (ASIL) and the required processes.

3. Weyer, T., Folmer, J., & Mäder, P. (2012). "A Comparison of Automotive SPICE and ISO 26262." Software Quality Professional, 14(4), 23-31.

Page 24: The paper states, "ISO 26262 is a standard for functional safety... The required level of rigor depends on the ASIL." It further clarifies, "Automotive SPICE is a process assessment model... It is used to evaluate the capability of development processes." This academic source clearly distinguishes the ASIL-dependent nature of ISO 26262 from the process capability focus of ASPICE.