Hello,
my customer is evaluation CCSv4.x (target MCU MSP430F5x) to judge if they can use this IDE for safety applications. The application have to be compliant to the IEC61508.
They ask if we can give comments about the reliability and conformance of the CCSv4.x to safety standards.
A consulting company of my customer has written a template for companies who develop safety applications (see below in blue). Please have a look onto it and give me the answers.
Currently they use the CCSv4.x with the CGT v 3.2.1. Which components have influences on the code (assembler, compiler, linker)?
" Our company uses your compiler, assembler and linker XX in version XX.
New projects will make our products suitable for safety applications.
This requires from the code generating tools a demonstrable level of freedom from errors of the code generation.
This can be achieved as per the applicable standard IEC 61508-3 either by (1) a certification against recognized national or international standard or
by (2) a validation of compliance and a demonstration of your positive field experience and maintenance efforts for the tools.
The later is typically documented by the following information:
- A confirmation of your extensive field experience with the tool version x.x on target platform YY, including a list of typical application areas and a rough number of sales.
Remark: The information should show for version x.x at least one year of field experience in minimum 10 different applications. Revisions purely for error removal can be considered as the same release. A process should be in place to identify, evaluate and track issues in the applications to make plausible that issues are not missed.
- A list of known anomalies with recommended work-around to be observed by our software engineers.
- Confirmation about the validation activities performed by using test suite XX, e.g. for a C compiler Plumhall (standard ANSI test suite for verifying the ANSI/ISO compatibility).
- A description of your product maintenance or error resolution process including testing.
- A reference to specific product documentation giving guidelines for the use of your tools in critical applications.
The delivery of this information does not imply that your company accepts any liability beyond what is accepted by your official product documentation.
We appreciate your support of our projects."
I think we will get many of these requests in future because more and more customers applications have to be compliant to some safety standards. So we should be prepared to these questions.
Further I think to do a phone conference with the customer and a IDE expert. Who can do that?
Regards
Holger
