Begun in November 2013, 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.

ST is already working with several customers who are using the safety manuals and YOGITECH self-test libraries to help certify functional safety of STM32-based equipment.