Green Hills Software announced that its Integrity and velOSity operating systems, the main components of the Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety, have been certified by TÜV to Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL3) of the IEC-61508 safety standard. SIL3 is the highest safety level possible for an individual software component, such as an operating system.
The Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety includes tools, operating systems, services, and middleware for industrial control and automation systems for which reliability is critical.
By utilizing Integrity’s strict memory-protection and resource-partitioning capabilities to separate safety critical functions from the rest of the system, developers can incorporate applications of varying safety integrity levels on one computer. For developers of simpler devices running on processors without an MMU, the certified velOSity operating system can be employed.
The IEC-61508 standard is commonly used internationally by regulatory bodies for safety certification of industrial control, automation, and automotive systems. IEC-61508 covers the software development life cycle and places strong emphasis on analyzing and mitigating safety hazards, enforcement of a rigorous quality management system, and extremely thorough verification and validation, the company says.
–Edited by Lisa Sutor , Control Engineering intern
