STMicroelectronics and YOGITECH have completed development of a flexible software-design support package that streamlines certification of safety-critical systems featuring STM32 microcontrollers.

The joint project has produced a set of STM32 safety manuals to assist application design, as well as Software Test Libraries (fRSTL) certified according to the IEC61508:2010 functional-safety standard. YOGITECH used its patented fRMethodology white-box approach for safety analysis and verification  to create the fRSTL and the related tools suite (fRTools) that ensures superior and proven diagnostic coverage compared to conventional black-box testing.

Customers can choose to develop their own STL, referring to the STM32 safety manuals. These can be downloaded free of charge from st.com . On the other hand, using the YOGITECH fRSTL_stm32 libraries provides a turnkey STL that accelerates certification to IEC 61508 Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 2/3 while also minimizing test costs and development risks. Either approach allows a certified safety-critical system using a standard STM32 microcontroller, rather than a specialized safety microcontroller with dedicated on-chip diagnostic circuitry.

The manuals and libraries cover STM32 F0, F1, F2, F3, F4, and L1 series, giving engineers a choice of over 500 devices offering high performance and rich features for safety-critical applications. Support for other STM32 series will be added in the near future. The fRSTL software libraries are certified by TÜV Rheinland according to the IEC61508:2010 functional safety standard for systematic capability (SC3) and a Diagnostic Coverage according to the direct-current fault model that can be used in applications up to and including SIL2 (HW Fault Tolerance-HFT of 0) and SIL3 (HFT of 1).  The Safety Manuals also give indications about how to use the results in the framework of other functional-safety standards like ISO 13849, IEC 62061, IEC 61800, IEC 60730, and ISO 26262.

Safety-critical industrial applications subject to IEC 61508 include systems for controlling access to hazardous areas, systems controlling machine-operator protection, and robot controllers. The robotics market, in particular, is growing strongly with global shipments predicted to exceed 280,000 systems by 2017 according to the International Federation of Robotics.