Functional Safety Certification for programmable electronic Devices
In the Industrial Automation and process control industry, risk management and Safety aspects become increasingly important for the selection of software platforms in embedded systems. Certification of software component according to IEC 61508 is often part of the project.
IEC 61508 (also EN 61508) has been released in 1998 by the International Electrotechnical Commission and renewed in 2010. The document includes seven parts in which Part 3 defines the software requirements of "Functional Safety of electrical / electronic / programmable electronic Safety-related systems". IEC 61508 distinguishes four Safety Integrity Level (SIL) according to the probability of failures and their potential damage. Certification after IEC 61508 is required if computer-based systems perform Safety-critical functions which today is more and more common.
Safety Levels
SIL (Safety Integrity Level)
SIL 4 - Highest only with hardware
SIL 3 - Highest for pure software
SIL 2
SIL 1 - Lowest
(SIL 0 - Base integrity)
Reducing Time-to-Market via Safety CertKits
The PikeOS certification approach is modular and hardware independent to the upmost extend. Certifications can be easily extended to different hardware platforms with additional certifiable artefacts, such as a certifiable IP stack, POSIX, Math Library or a filesystem. The tool chain is qualified and the Safety methods and considerations are adapted accoring to the respected vertical market. PikeOS is certifiable according to the latest industry certification standards. We engage in a close manner with major homologation institutes. The CertKit supports the certification process of the entire system, thus reduces time to market. PikeOS comes with requirement documents (all hierarchy levels) that are structured by requirement IDs and can be reused in customer documentation for traceability.
Other standards can be met via compliance matrices.
The PikeOS Certkit is a bundle of evidences for a specific PikeOS version and hardware. It contains:
Tool Operational Requirements of customer-related tools
Interface Specifications
User Manual
Each CertKit comes with a frequently updated Safety bulletin, mentioning known Safety alerts and improvements. Customers can switch to long term maintenance for a selected certifiable product.
