This white paper discusses how market trends, the need for increased productivity, and new legislation have
accelerated the use of safety systems in industrial machinery. This TÜV-qualified FPGA design methodology is
changing the paradigms of safety designs and will greatly reduce development effort, system complexity, and time to
market. This allows FPGA users to design their own customized safety controllers and provides a significant
competitive advantage over traditional microcontroller or ASIC-based designs.
Introduction
The basic motivation of deploying functional safety systems is to ensure safe operation as well as safe behavior in
cases of failure. Examples of functional safety systems include train brakes, proximity sensors for hazardous areas
around machines such as fast-moving robots, and distributed control systems in process automation equipment such
as those used in petrochemical plants.
The International Electrotechnical Commission’s standard, IEC 61508: “Functional safety of
electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems,” is understood as the standard for designing
safety systems for electrical, electronic, and programmable electronic (E/E/PE) equipment. This standard was
developed in the mid-1980s and has been revised several times to cover the technical advances in various industries.
In addition, derivative standards have been developed for specific markets and applications that prescribe the
particular requirements on functional safety systems in these industry applications. Example applications include
process automation (IEC 61511), machine automation (IEC 62061), transportation (railway EN 50128), medical (IEC
62304), automotive (ISO 26262), power generation, distribution, and transportation.
