This RX Functional Safety solution is intended for industrial automation applications and reduces the complexity of IEC 61508 SIL3 (Note 1) certification, an international standard for functional safety.
The FSoE software is based on the FSoE standard published by the EtherCAT Technology Group and developers can obtain an FSoE protocol stack in addition to an RX microcontroller (MCU) with functional safety support and the software – all in a single package. As a result, it will be possible to speed up the development of industrial equipment incorporating FSoE, and encourage the quick implementation of communication functions that are needed to support functional safety, such as alarms indicating danger or emergency stop signals using an RX MCU.
“As the trend toward smart factories continues, there is a growing need for autonomous machine-to-machine communication, robust communication bus systems that support safety implementation through industrial Ethernet, and redundant systems design to ensure safety and reliability,” said Sakae Ito, Vice President of the IoT Platform Business Division at Renesas.
RX Functional Safety support is now extended to all MCUs built around the RXv3 core (e.g., the RX72M, RX72N, RX72T, RX66N, and RX66T) in addition to the previously supported MCUs built around RXv1 and RXv2 cores.
Using the certified software eliminates the need for users to develop MCU-specific functional safety software and allows them to focus on developing their own application software. RX MCU users can also utilize their existing software assets when developing equipment with functional safety support, thereby significantly reducing overall development time.
