Introduction to IEC 61508

Over the past 25 years there have been a number of initiatives worldwide to develop guidelines and standards to enable the safe exploitation of programmable electronic systems used for safety applications. In the context of industrial applications (to distinguish from aerospace and military applications) a major initiative has been focussed on IEC 61508 and this standard is emerging as a key international standard in many industrial sectors. This paper considers some of the key features of IEC 61508 and indicates some of the issues that are being considered in the current revision.