ARM Compiler Qualification Kit achieves certification against safety standards

Users of toolchains that do not provide equivalent documentation face a longer, more expensive qualification process; either generating their own evidence,  or opting for third party certification, which typically lacks backing evidence or requires severe restrictions on toolchain functionality. The ARM Compiler Qualification Kit can dramatically reduce the effort of certifying the software running on different types of products by providing usage guidelines for the safety-critical application developer and validation evidence demonstrating the appropriateness of the ARM Compiler toolchain for safety-related applications. With the approach taken by the ARM Compiler Qualification Kit, developers of ARM-based safety applications can take advantage of code generated with high levels of compiler optimization.

“ARM processors are fast becoming the de facto standard in safety-related applications and trusted hardware as well as proven software development tools are equally important,” said Reinhard Keil, director, MCU Tools, ARM. “The ARM Compiler Qualification Kit reduces validation efforts and simplifies certification of safety-critical systems with extensive reports and practical user guidelines that avoid degrading compiler optimizations.”

The Qualification Kit documentation can be used by the software developer, corporate safety manager, and the safety certification assessor as evidence that recommended best practices have been followed and that vendor developed test and defect reports have been analyzed with necessary mitigations put in place.

The ARM Compiler Qualification Kit consists of the following documents:

1. Safety Manual

The Safety Manual informs the customer how to configure the toolchain for safety-related projects, including recommended use cases and mitigation strategies for potential errors.

2. Defect Report

The Defect Report contains a listing of known defects and workarounds, whether found via internal testing or customer reported.

3. Test Report

The Test Report provides C language conformance test results, demonstrating that the compiler generates correct output based on ISO c90 and c99 C language conformant input.

4. Development Process Document

The Development Process document provides a description of the internal software development process used to produce the toolchain, including procedures for requirements and defect management, procedures for configuration management, traceability between source code commits and defects or requirements, and validation procedures.

Once the toolchain has been qualified internally, long term maintenance is important to protect that investment. The optional ARM Compiler Extended Maintenance Program provides long-term maintenance releases to a fixed compiler branch for a minimum of five years, with longer terms available if needed. The ARM Compiler Qualification Kit and Extended Support option are aligned with ARM Compiler 5.04, which is now available. ARM Compiler 5.04 will be available as part of Development Studio 5 (DS-5) in December 2013 and Keil MDK-ARM in January 2014.