Renesas Electronics Europe says it has received German VDE certification for its IEC60335-compliant self-test software for the RX600 and RL78 microcontrollers.
Self-test CPU software routines developed for the RX600 and RL78 families are compliant with IEC60730-1 regulations for safety-critical applications and have now been certified by VDE.
"This software offers high value to any firmware developers involved in safety-critical applications and appliances because the VDE approved software is suitable for all of Renesas’ RX600 and RL78 MCUs," said Vincent Mignard, marketing engineer for white goods and motor control at Renesas Electronics Europe.
In addition to the on-chip hardware safety features, the self-test CPU software makes it easier for manufacturers of industrial, motor control and home appliances to meet IEC60730-1 (IEC60335) class B safety requirements.
The IEC 60730-1/60335-1 safety standards require software running on an MCU to be able to detect any safety-critical failures according to specific fault models.
The RL78 and RX600 MCUs integrate on-chip peripherals like the CRC (cyclic redundancy check engine), the analogue-to-digital (A/D) converter which integrates a self-diagnosis function to ensure the plausibility checks, and a hardware clock monitoring function.
The RL78 MCU also integrates a RAM parity error check to secure the storage of safety relevant variables.
Renesas said it has been certified for its periodic test routines for CPU registers and program counter test, stack test, RAM tests (using March X and C algorithms), Flash check (using cyclic redundancy check engines) and clock monitoring tests.
The software source codes in C and ASM for the RX600 and RL78 families of MCUs are now available on the Renesas website
