RM41L232: IEC 60730 Class C compliance

Hello Jarrett,

Hercules products are specifically certified for IEC61508 SIL3 and ISO26262 ASILD functional safety requirements. Certainly this allows for use in IEC60730 Class C systems as well as many of the same principles are applied and the diagnostic requirements of Class C can be linked directly to the IEC61508 standard. Since we do not specifically address the IEC60730 standard in our collateral or supporting materials, there needs to be a little understanding of both to bridge the gap between them. For that we have a white paper that we have developed that explains how to use our devices in a 60730 application and how to tie together the IEC 61508 requirements to the IEC 60730 Class C requirements. The information provided is provided at a relatively high level given it is only a white paper but I think it gives a good overview and starting point. The document can be found at this link: www.ti.com/.../spny005.pdf

Hi Jarrett,

Jarrett said:

1.  Would it be possible to certify a C2000 or an MSP430 for IEC60730 Class C or are there some physical limitations in the hardware that will prevent this on these MCU's? 

C2000 has some devices that are shown as being capable of class C certification as well. For more details, please see the information on the SafeTI page here .

I really can't speak too much about either of the MSP430 or C2000 products since I am not familiar with them or how they have achieved compliance. From my perception, it seems they are relying mostly on software to meet the requirements of the standard which, by the IEC60730 standard should be acceptable.

From the Hercules perspective, we have targeted very high levels of diagnostic coverage in our device. This is driven by the IEC61508 standard which requires >99% diagnostic coverage for the device in order to meet SIL 3 safety objectives.I don't believe this level of coverage will be possible with the current C2K or MSP430 offerings but you should discuss this with those teams to be certain. And, to that end, I don't think the IEC 60730 standard requires that high of coverage.

Jarrett said:

2.  Are things like Dual CPU's running in lock step, ECC on FLASH and RAM, BIST, Error signaling, etc required to meet IEC60730?  Thus making Hercules the obvious choice in the TI platform as a path to achieve IEC60730 Class C certification.

Generally speaking, I don't believe these HW elements are a requirement for IEC 60730 class C. However, as mentioned in the white paper, they do add some benefit since they are based in HW allowing very high levels of diagnostic coverage without the expense of the SW overhead. As always, it comes down to cost vs benefit. The extra HW does add some cost to the die and therefore some overhead on the project, but it may also reduce development time and operational overhead since the mechanisms are implemented in HW. This is really a question for the integrator and is dependent on their goals and project objectives.