Functional safety is no longer a “nice to have” or “should have” in many applications, having moved to “must have” in spaces like automotive, industrial automation, medical devices, and aviation. 

Passing the functional safety testing process can be rigorous, especially if you’re going through it for the first time. But even the best experts take at least six months to get software certified. 

To understand exactly what functional safety is, what the testing process is like, and how and when a developer should get started, I spoke to Bill Lamie, the President and CEO of PX5 RTOS, and someone who’s been through the rigors of functional safety testing on this week’s Embedded Executives podcast.