ARM has delivered a comprehensive safety document set for the ARM® Cortex®-R5 processor to drive its adoption in safety-critical applications. This is a vital step toward the cost-effective deployment of more technically advanced systems across multiple sectors including automotive, health and industrial. The Cortex-R5 is the first in a range of ARM processors to come with a safety document set that semiconductor companies can use to demonstrate compliance with new functional safety standards.

“Functional safety is increasingly important for many markets, including automotive, medical and industrial applications, and ARM is committed to supporting partners wishing to pursue these rapidly-expanding markets,” said Noel Hurley, general manager, CPU group, ARM. “The Cortex-R5 processor has a rich set of fault detection and control features and the addition of generic safety documentation means developers can now use it across the broadest range of safety applications. ARM will be supporting other processors from our diverse product portfolio in a similar way.”

System developers now have assurance that the Cortex-R5 processor can be used in safety-related applications as the SoC developers have access to additional information required for demonstrating functional safety. For automotive applications such as powertrain and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Cortex R5-based designs with ISO 26262 enables a reduction in the overall quantity of components. This results in faster design cycles and lower manufacturing and overall system costs as well as reduced power consumption and vehicle emissions.

In addition, industrial safety-related systems need to demonstrate compliance to the IEC 61508 standard and the Cortex-R5 safety document package supports this qualification. The generic safety documentation also enables Cortex-R5 to be applied to many other markets, including medical, which is covered by a broad range of standards, requiring a generic approach.

Furthermore, the industry-standard ARM Compiler is now TÜV SÜD certified, allowing for safety-related software development up to ISO 26262 ASIL D and IEC 61508 SIL 3 without further toolchain qualification activities. The TÜV certification complements the ARM Compiler Qualification Kit, which contains the Safety Manual, Development Process Document, Test Report and Defect Report.

The Cortex-R5 processor is an advanced and cost-effective real-time processor for many embedded applications and has been widely adopted by silicon vendors to develop both application-specific SoCs and general purpose microcontrollers.

Partner Quotes

“Functional safety is a critical must often seen as a cost by silicon vendors. A perfect fit with the CPU subsystem helps change this cost into pure benefit,” said Bruno Paucard, CEO, Scaleo chip. "This is why we’ve been working closely with ARM for years, fine tuning the close connection between Scaleo’s SILant® safety technology and the safety features of Cortex-R5 processors embedded into the OLEA microcontrollers family. We are also complementing the Scaleo Safety manual with the critical information provided by ARM through this initiative.”

“We are pleased about ARM’s growing investment in the area of functional safety as it will greatly enhance and strengthen the Cortex-R5 processor platform,” said Takeshi Fuse, senior vice president, automotive MCU BU, Spansion. "We welcome further and pervasive adoption of Cortex-R5 architecture in the automotive industry.”

“Functional safety techniques are being applied at increasingly lower levels of design abstraction. ARM’s approach for functional safety designs with the Cortex-R5 core will ease the safety certification burden for our customers in the automotive, health and industrial markets,” said Norbert Asche, general manager, safety microcontrollers, Texas Instruments. “Our Hercules™ TMS570LC4x and RM57x microcontrollers (MCUs), based on the ARM Cortex-R5 core, and our SafeTI™ design packages help designers meet requirements of industry standard functional safety standards such as ISO 26262, IEC 61508 and ISO 13849 while managing both systematic and random failures."

Further Information

The automotive industry in particular is a growing market for ARM technology as vehicles increasingly use embedded compute systems to address both safety and fuel efficiency demands from consumers and legislators. Research firm IC Insights1 forecasts semiconductor consumption in the automotive sector will grow at almost 11 percent CAGR until 2018, driven by demand for systems such as reversing cameras, eCall, chassis control, instrument cluster processing and other advanced driver assistance systems.

The Cortex-R5 safety documentation is available now for licensing and adds to ARM’s support for industrial and automotive applications where ARM-based SoCs are increasingly used.

Ends

Notes to Editors

1http://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Automotive-IC-Market-To-Display-Strongest-Growth-Through-2018/

About ARM

ARM is at the heart of the world's most advanced digital products. Our technology enables the creation of new markets and transformation of industries and society. We design scalable, energy efficient-processors and related technologies to deliver the intelligence in applications ranging from sensors to servers, including smartphones, tablets, enterprise infrastructure and the Internet of Things.

Our innovative technology is licensed by ARM Partners who have shipped more than 60 billion System on Chip (SoCs) containing our intellectual property since the company began in 1990. Together with our Connected Community, we are breaking down barriers to innovation for developers, designers and engineers, ensuring a fast, reliable route to market for leading electronics companies. Learn more and join the conversation at http://community.arm.com.

ARM and Cortex are registered trademarks of ARM Limited (or its subsidiaries) in the EU and/or elsewhere. All rights reserved. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders. "ARM" refers to ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM and NASDAQ: ARMH) and members of its corporate group as constituted from time to time.

None of the information contained in this document may be adapted, republished, or reproduced in any form except with the prior written permission of the copyright holder, but links may be posted directly to this document from other websites, and the whole of the document correctly attributed and unmodified may be shared freely, unless the copyright holder at any time withdraws these permissions. This document is intended only to provide information to the reader about the relevant product(s) described or mentioned. All information is provided "as is" and without warranty. ARM makes no representation as to the product(s), and ARM shall not be liable for any loss or damage arising from the use of any information in this document or any error or omission in such information.