Standard Compliance

ASAM standards are public specifications, which are primarily used in development and test tool chains in the automotive industry. The application of ASAM standards is voluntary. They are recommendations. There are no laws or government directives that mandate the use of ASAM standards. There exists no official certification of products against ASAM standards. However, ASAM recommends and supports the following best-practices for determining standard-compliance of products:

• Standard Compliance Statement
• Cross Testing
• Checker Tools and Source Code

Standard Compliance Statement

Tool vendors are encouraged to add a compliance statement to their product documentation, which includes the following information:

1. List of standards and their version numbers, for which compliance is claimed.
2. List of limitations: Identifies those items of the listed standards that are not implemented or not supported by the product.
3. List of deviations: Identifies those items of the listed standards that are implemented or supported in a different way than defined in the standard. The deviations relative to the standards shall be clearly described.

A claim of compliance to an ASAM standard without further specifying limitations and deviations shall only be done, if the product completely complies to the standard without any limitations and deviations.

If ASAM has sufficient reason to believe that incorrect claims of standard compliance are made by a tool vendor, then ASAM will contact the vendor and demand a correction of the claims. If the tool vendor makes continued use of claims which are proven to be incorrect, then ASAM reserves the right to warn its members from such false compliance statements and take legal actions.

Cross Testing

For some of its standards, ASAM carries out cross testing events. Cross tests are typically carried out one to two years after a new release of a standard, once the ASAM tool vendors have implemented the release. The primary purpose of cross testing is to verify standard compliant tool interoperability among all tools from participating vendors.

During preparation of the cross test, experts from tool vendor companies jointly define test cases. ASAM provides a test suite upon request. During the cross test event, product experts from the tool companies meet, connect their tools to each other and carry out the tests. If an issue is found during testing, then it will be documented, experts try to determine the cause of the issue and agree on corrective actions.

ASAM publishes the name of companies and products, which participated at the cross test, but does not publish the test results. Tool vendors typically fix their issues found during cross testing and make a product release soon after the event. The overall objectives of cross testing are increased tool interoperability, a better understanding of the standard, potential improvements in the standard and significantly reduced tool chain integration efforts for end users.

Checker Tools and Source Code

To support the implementation and application of its standards, ASAM provides additionally checker tools and source code. Checker tools verify the standard compliance of file formats, APIs or protocols. A checker tool has been specified and verified by the same group of experts that also developed the standard. Hence, the report of the checker tool constitute an official expertise about the standard compliance of the checked product.

Source code, which is packaged and delivered together with the standard, is a standard-compliant implementation of the standard. Also here, the same group of experts checked and released the source code. Consequently, integrating ASAM source code into products ensures a high degree of standard compliance.