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Functional safety is the work of preventing unreasonable risk from hazards caused by malfunctioning electrical or electronic systems. In automotive development, ISO 26262 provides a framework for identifying hazards, setting safety goals, deriving requirements, and building evidence that the system meets them. Infineon’s AURIX™ TC3xx Safety Application Kit can help engineers explore safety mechanisms and fault responses, but it is a demonstrator—not a shortcut to ISO 26262 compliance.
What functional safety means in an automotive project
Functional safety focuses on how a system behaves when faults occur and on the measures needed to keep resulting risk within acceptable bounds. ISO 26262 addresses this through a lifecycle of hazard analysis, safety requirements, design, verification, and supporting evidence. A development team does not establish safety merely by choosing a safety-capable microcontroller: it must show how the complete item and its components meet the requirements for the intended vehicle function.
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An All About Circuits webinar presented with Infineon introduces systematic and random hardware failures, safety goals, Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) classifications, and the Safety Element out of Context (SEooC) concept. It also discusses translating safety requirements into system architectures. The presenter was Valon Shala, Infineon Principal Engineer in Field Application Engineering and Functional Safety for automotive microcontrollers. Webinar overview.
How risks, safety goals, and ASIL fit together
At a high level, the safety process starts with hazards associated with the vehicle-level function and evaluates their risk. That analysis informs safety goals: high-level requirements describing what must be achieved to avoid or mitigate the hazardous behavior. The goals are then refined into requirements allocated across the system, hardware, and software. ASIL classifications express the rigor required by the standard for relevant safety requirements; they are not a general quality rating for a chip or a development board.
For an AURIX-based design, the practical task is to connect those project-level requirements to the chosen architecture and to the MCU’s safety mechanisms, while also accounting for faults outside the MCU. The webinar’s subject matter provides an educational overview of that connection, not a completed hazard analysis or a safety assessment for any particular product.
What SEooC means for AURIX TC3xx
Infineon treats the TC3xx as a hardware component developed out of context rather than as a device tailored to one particular vehicle item. Infineon states in AN0001, AURIX™ TC3xx functional safety (FuSa) in a nutshell: “Since it is not tailored for a specific item, according to automotive safety standard ISO 26262 part 10, the AURIX™ TC3xx is a Safety Element out of Context (SEooC) hardware component.” The application note references ISO 26262:2018. Read Infineon AN0001.
“Out of context” is an important boundary. A component can be developed with safety mechanisms and supporting assumptions, but the system integrator still has to determine whether it fits the intended use, select applicable use cases, and implement the assumptions and measures described in its safety documentation. The MCU alone cannot establish that the complete system is safe or compliant.
What is in the customer safety package
Infineon describes the TC3xx customer safety package as including a safety case report, a safety manual, and an FMEDA template. The package contains device-specific safety documentation and is made available under a nondisclosure agreement (NDA). The application note says the package supports compliance justification for ISO 26262 and IEC 61508; project teams should consult the applicable document revisions and access conditions before using it in an implementation.
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What the AURIX TC3xx Safety Application Kit demonstrates
The kit is a physical development and demonstration setup. Infineon describes the APPKIT-A2G-SAFETY as an Application Kit TC397 TFT board paired with an add-on safety board. Demonstrations use hardware and software fault injection, safety-mechanism implementations, alarm generation, and monitoring through the board’s TFT display or a terminal. The purpose is to make selected safety mechanisms and their responses observable on a bench, not to reproduce every condition or requirement of a vehicle system.
Infineon’s presentation dated March 26, 2024 describes the kit as combining the TC397 TFT Application Kit with an add-on shield board. It lists a quick-start guide, application note, example metric-calculation documentation, and demonstration software among the supporting materials. View the kit overview presentation. Infineon’s APPKIT-A2G-SAFETY product page provides its documented features and demonstrations.
What engineers can learn from a bench demonstration
- How a selected safety mechanism is exercised under an injected fault.
- How an alarm or other monitored response becomes visible through the safety-management unit and the kit’s display or terminal.
- How example software and metric-calculation material can support learning and early prototyping.
These demonstrations can help engineers understand behavior and develop familiarity with the platform. They do not replace project-specific analysis, verification, validation, or the evidence required for a safety case.
How to use the kit without confusing demonstration with compliance
- Start with the system requirement. Identify the safety goal and the derived requirement you intend to investigate; do not begin by assuming that a kit feature maps automatically to a project need.
- Check the component assumptions. Obtain and review the applicable TC3xx safety documentation, including the safety manual and relevant package artifacts, under Infineon’s access conditions.
- Choose a representative demonstration. Use the kit’s examples to explore an applicable mechanism, injected fault, or alarm response. Record the configuration and limits of the bench setup.
- Make the project-level argument separately. Determine how the selected MCU and mechanism fit the complete system architecture, address the project’s assumptions, and contribute to verification and safety-case evidence.
Owning or using the kit does not make a product ISO 26262-compliant. Compliance justification depends on the intended application, its system design, the applicable safety documentation, and the project’s own lifecycle evidence.
How the TC375 Safety Lite Kit differs
Infineon also describes a TC375 Safety Lite Kit route: it combines existing TC375 Lite Kit hardware with a freely available safety software project. That is a distinct, lighter way to get started, not another name for the TC397-based TC3xx Safety Application Kit. The right choice depends on whether a team needs the dedicated demonstration setup and fault-injection experience or a software project on TC375 Lite Kit hardware. Infineon’s getting-started page covers both AURIX learning resources and the separate Lite Kit description: How to get started with AURIX.
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