Ferrous Systems, a provider of professional services and tooling for embedded software developers, has secured a SIL 2 safety certification from TÜV SÜD.

The firm says that the credential will unlock new ways of programming machines such as factory robots.

Berlin-based Ferrous Systems is led by key contributors to the Rust programming language. The language is not susceptible to common memory-related vulnerabilities, such as buffer overflows that allow hackers to overwrite program data with malicious code. That feature and certain other selling points are making Rust an increasingly popular choice for embedded software development.

Ferrous Systems offers an open-source distribution of Rust called Ferrocene. It’s practically identical to the original version with two main exceptions. First, Ferrous Systems provides paid professional services such as training and customer support. Second, Ferrocene complies with certain software reliability and safety standards that aren’t supported by the upstream version of Rust. Ferrous Systems’ newly secured SIL 2 certification strengthens the latter component of its value proposition.

A system with a SIL 2 certification is only likely to experience a major failure once every 100 to 1,000 years. Ferrous Systems received the certification for a subset of a Ferrocene component called the Rust Core Library. The component includes essential programming building blocks that applications can use for tasks such as processing text and hashing data. Unlike certain other elements of Rust, it doesn’t require an operating system to work. That makes the Rust Core Library usable on low-compute devices that can’t run Linux. Such devices are commonly known as embedded systems.

Thanks to the new SIL 2 certification, developers can now use the qualified subset of Ferrocene’s Rust Core Library to build software for a broader range of embedded systems. SIL 2 compliance is required for systems that operate in highly regulated environments, perform mission-critical tasks with little margin for error or both. TÜV SÜD, the firm that issued the certification, is a large provider of safety evaluation services with more than 1,000 offices worldwide. 

According to Ferrous Labs, Ferrocene’s SIL 2 certification applies to the relevant subset of the Rust Core Library when it runs on processors powered by Armv7E-M and Armv8-A. Those are two versions of Arm’s ubiquitous instruction set architecture. Armv7E-M is designed to power relatively simple devices that don’t run an operating system, while Armv8-A provides operating system support along with certain other features. 

Ferrous Systems says that several organizations have already started integrating Ferrocene’s certified Rust Core Library subset into their products. Those products include autonomous robots and industrial automation equipment.

Photo courtesy of Unsplash