A growing number of products have to fulfill a certain Safety Integrity Level, SIL, according to the norm IEC61508 and its derivatives. This applies also to electronic control systems whose failure would endanger human life or health. Typical applications are i.e. controls for elevators, cranes, burners, x-by-wire etc.
Depending on the severity of a possible failure the norms call for measures that minimize the risk. To do so failures have to be detected, a second channel has to take over and/or the system has to be guided into a safe state. To get the system approved by a certifying body one has to document a low failure rate by means of a mathematical reliability model.
Renesas have now introduced a diagnostic library that tests cpu core and internal memories of RX631/N devices. The diagnostic coverage for cpu and memories is proven greater than 90%. Together with the selftest library a safety manual gives reliable data on the FIT rates of the device and brakes the figures down to single functional blocks on the chip. This provides you with important parameters for the mathematical reliability model. Both library and safety manual have been certified, in this case by the German TÜV.
If interested please ask your Renesas supplier for Y-CD-SAFETYRX63N-631-DE and go into further discussion.