TI commonly receives requests about whether the Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) we provide can be used in safety-certified applications, such as those in medical, automotive, or avionics. The answer to this is rather complex and depends on what the level of certification is required. The different certification standards may allow an RTOS to be pre-certified for use in applications (e.g. SIL3) or require that the RTOS be certified as part of the application certification process (e.g. DO-178B). In the latter case, some RTOS vendors make available ‘certification kits’ that contain critical artifacts such as test suites and results and design documentation.
Because certifying an RTOS or creating a certification kit is a major effort and TI provides its RTOS products at no charge, TI has been unable to invest in adding collateral or creating special releases that meet certification standards. Developers of such applications should bear in mind the following when considering use of a TI-supplied RTOS in an application that must be certified to a specific standard:
- TI does not formally certify its RTOS products to any standard
- TI does not provide any certification kits for its RTOS products
- TI cannot support on-site third-party audits of the software process used to develop its RTOS products
- TI RTOS products are developed under an ISO-9000-based process that is audited externally as part of the process for TI to maintain its ISO-9000 status
- TI cannot support on-site third-party audits of the software process used to develop its RTOS products
- The source code to our RTOS products is not MISRA-compliant, although it conforms to many of the MISRA rules
- TI does not allow many of its hardware or software products to be used in FDA Class III applications
The above points notwithstanding, TI customers have successfully used our RTOS products in certified applications. For applications that have stringent certification requirements, customers have obtained the product source code and test suites to create their own artifacts. For applications where certification requirements for third-party supplied software are less stringent, it is often sufficient for customer to obtain the RTOS test results along with an overview of what the test suites do. In response to customer requirements, TI has improved availability of source code and test results for its RTOS products. Below is a summary of the situation for each product:
| Product | Source Code | Test Suites |
| TI-RTOS | Available as standard part of product | Kernel test suite results and overview available upon request |
| SYS/BIOS | Available as standard part of product | Kernel test suite results and overview available upon request |
| DSP/BIOS | Must be purchased for $20,000 |
Kernel test suite results and overview available upon request may be available for some releases only |
