exida explains Blog

You don’t’ really know what you know until you have to explain it (or teach it) to someone else. 

When I’m asked about some of the technical aspects of functional safety, I have to stop and ask myself “What Do I Know About This?”  I’m not the kind…

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IEC 61508 is considered a basic or “umbrella” standard for functional safety.  It is generic and sometimes even vague.  IEC 61508 was intended that various industry sectors provide their own specific standards and guidelines as needed.  Here we can see the relationship between 61508 and other standards, such as…

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Have you ever wondered if you tested your product enough? Either in enough ways or for a long enough time?  This assumes that you’d prefer to discover all the problems before your customers do. If you follow a 61508 compliant development process, you should be able to…

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An Interference-Free component, either as an interface or a defined functional area, is a system component that is neither safety critical (C3) nor safety relevant (C2), but interfaces with such subsystems. 

If a component has been shown to be interference free (C1), then it has been demonstrated that no…

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Traceability is about connecting the dots to determine that the web of activities for a functional safety project have followed the proper paths.  Think of it like cheating at hide-n-seek; it provides a shortcut to find all those requirements and design parts that are hidden in your specification documents. …

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Some organizations complain about the ‘high bar’ to comply with 61508.  They complain that there is too much overhead in documentation and testing, and it all costs too much.  Other organizations actually benefit from this ‘high bar’ as a barrier to entry for competitors.  This is a differentiation factor…

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