What Is Functional Safety?
Functional safety is a critical element for any system deployed within a vehicle, robot, factory, and beyond. It’s the system’s ability to detect, diagnose, and safely mitigate the occurrence of any fault, preventing harm to people and the environment. Arm’s Safety Ready Portfolio and functional safety partnerships offer customers the solutions they need for their functional safety-related applications.
Learn how functional safety is applied to automotive systems in this white paper.

To ensure the best outcomes for our technology and customers, Arm plays an active role in the development of international safety guidelines; for example, ISO 26262 and ISO/PAS 21448.
Arm products are designed “out of context” to satisfy the widest range of applications. We believe that everyone in the integrated circuit (IC) supply chain has an important role to play in safety certification, and applications must be certified in accordance with market-specific standards. Arm is capable of supporting customers and manufacturers in their certification processes of Arm-based devices.
Get Ready for a New Era of Compute
The crucial stepping-stones to enhance functional utility and human safety have arrived with the latest flexible, scalable heterogeneous compute solution from Arm. Learn how Arm provides the functional safety support, processing power and efficiency to enable the journey to autonomous.

Arm’s Safety Ready Portfolio
Arm’s Safety Ready portfolio is a collection of Arm products that have been through various and rigorous levels of functional safety systematic flows and development. It combines IP, safety features, tools, and robust methodologies to help reduce risk while fast-tracking the certification phase of projects.
See the list of Arm Safety Ready products.
Functional Safety in SoC Design with Dream Chip
Developing applications that meet stringent safety certification standards needn’t mean a longer time to market. Find out how to accelerate SoC design whilst minimizing the risk of systematic faults and building robust processes.
Safety Product Development with Embedded Office
Discover how Embedded Office supports developers to address the complexity in safety-critical products.
Certified Software Tools with IAR
Prove compliance with industry-specific functional safety standards by utilizing certified software tools.
Safety and Security with Virtual Open Systems
Read about VOSySmonitor, an ISO 26262 ASIL C certified safety-critical hypervisor built on Arm TrustZone.
To help our partners enable functional safety, Arm offers a wide range of IP, tools, and support.
Includes evidence of external certification, allowing more time to focus on integrating Arm functional safety IP at a system level.
Rigorous approach to safety-related product design and verification helps minimize the risk of systematic faults and saves time and effort.
Includes comprehensive details on specific product safety features, verification, Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA), and more.
Ongoing development of IP, tools, and test libraries that help reduce time to market and meet industry assessment standards.
Find the right partners specializing in software and tools, design services, and training for functional safety.
Arm’s Safety Ready Portfolio consists of IP supported by safety packages and development tools and solutions to enable functional safety.
Development tools include Software Test Libraries (STL), Functional Safety Run-Time System (FuSa RTS) and Arm Compiler for Functional Safety.
Arm IP | Software Test Library support |
Level of Functional Safety support |
Tools and Software support |
Processor available in Arm Flexible Access* |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cortex-A78AE |
In development |
Extended |
🔵 |
|
Cortex-A76AE |
Extended |
🔵 |
||
Cortex-A76 |
Extended |
🔵 |
||
Cortex-A75 |
Standard |
🔵 |
||
Cortex-A72 |
Available in 2021 |
Standard |
🔵 |
|
Cortex-A65AE |
Extended |
🔵 |
||
Cortex-A65 |
Extended |
🔵 |
||
Cortex-A55 |
Extended |
🔵 |
||
Cortex-A53 |
✔ |
Standard |
🔵 |
✔ |
Cortex-A35 |
Standard |
🔵 |
✔ |
|
Cortex-A34 |
Standard |
🔵 |
✔ |
|
Cortex-A32 |
Standard |
🔵 |
✔ |
|
Cortex-R52 |
✔ |
Extended |
🔵 |
✔ |
Cortex-R5 |
✔ |
Extended |
🔵 |
✔ |
Cortex-M55 |
Available in 2022 |
Extended |
🔵 |
|
Cortex-M33 |
✔ |
Extended |
🔵 |
✔ |
Cortex-M23 |
Extended |
🔵 |
✔ |
|
Cortex-M7 |
Standard |
🔵⚫ |
✔ |
|
Cortex-M4 |
✔ |
Standard |
🔵⚫ |
✔ |
Cortex-M3 |
✔ |
Standard |
🔵⚫ |
✔ |
Cortex-M0+ |
✔ |
Standard |
🔵⚫ |
✔ |
Mali-G78AE |
N/A |
Extended |
||
Mali-C71AE |
N/A |
Extended |
||
GIC-600AE |
N/A |
Extended |
||
MMU-600AE |
N/A |
Extended |
||
CMN-600AE |
N/A |
Extended |
Key:
🔵 Arm Compiler for Functional Safety
âš« Arm Run-Time System for Functional Safety
* Selected IP is available in Arm Flexible Access. Learn more about Arm Flexible Access for Automotive.
Functional safety and safety certification are key concerns for everyone in the integrated circuit (IC) supply chain. If you have any questions about functional safety for Arm-based devices, talk to an Arm expert.
Webinars
- Arm Cortex-A78AE: On the Road to an Autonomous Future
- Mali-G78AE: Arm's First High-Performance GPU with Functional Safety
- Arm Mali-C71AE: High-Performance Image Signal Processing with Advanced Safety
Blogs
- Enabling Next-Generation Autonomous Systems
- Workload Consolidation on Arm
- Accelerating ADAS Adoption on the Road to Vision Zero
- Functional Safety in Industry: Thinking Outside the Cage
- Accelerating Innovation for Safety Systems with Arm Flexible Access
- Functional Safety on Arm – Beyond Automotive
- Evolving safety systems: Comparing lockstep, redundant execution and split lock technologies
- Introducing Arm's Functional Safety Partnership Program