The microcontrollers with safety features help engineers meet safety standards, reduce design costs, and simplify development for automotive, industrial, and medical applications.
Microchip Technology has introduced the AVR SD family of microcontrollers (MCUs) to help engineers meet strict safety standards while reducing design costs and complexity. These MCUs include built-in functional safety features designed for applications requiring high safety assurance. Combined with a specialized safety software framework, this is the first entry-level MCU at its price point designed to meet Automotive Safety Integrity Level C (ASIL C) and Safety Integrity Level 2 (SIL 2) requirements, which involve redundant safety checks.
The AVR SD family is backed by a TÜV Rheinland-certified functional safety management system. Its hardware safety features include a dual-core lockstep CPU, dual Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs), Error Correction Code (ECC) for all memories, an error controller module, error injection mechanisms, and voltage and clock monitors. These reduce fault detection time and simplify software development. The MCUs can detect internal faults within 1 millisecond, helping meet strict Fault Detection Time Interval (FDTI) goals to prevent hazards and improve reliability.
The MCUs can detect and manage errors on their own, entering a safe state when necessary. They are suitable as main processors for safety-critical tasks like detecting thermal runaways or monitoring sensor data, while maintaining low power consumption. Additionally, they work well as coprocessors in complex systems for redundancy or offloading safety-related tasks.
The AVR SD MCUs comply with ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 safety standards, which are widely used across industries like aerospace, defense, industrial automation, automotive, and medical sectors. They are ideal for applications such as flight control systems, ignition control, robotics safety functions, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and medical infusion pumps.
“When designing safety-critical applications, engineers have typically been limited to using expensive and complicated devices. By integrating specific safety features directly into an entry-level MCU and providing a supporting software framework, we are helping our customers meet stringent safety standards with greater efficiency,” said Greg Robinson, corporate vice president of Microchip’s MCU business unit. “With the AVR SD family, designers can significantly reduce development time and minimize system and certification costs.”
