ETMS2.com

November 2005 Semiconductor Safety Update

 

IEC TC44 Annual Meeting Japan November 8 and 9 – 2005

TC44 is the committee that controls the technical content of 60204-1 and 60204-33 the new international electrical standard for semiconductor equipment.

TC44 Semiconductor working group reported that its first draft of 60204-33 will be out for committee comment in November. The next two meetings are scheduled for April 24-26, 2006 in Tokyo and June 26-28 in Milwaukee.

A new technical committee was created in the IEC TC 111 “Environmental standardization for electrical and electronics products and systems” This is technical committee will lead the effort of the IEC to bring international harmonization to the environment regulations that have been impacting equipment manufacturers. There will be much overlap with this effort and what has already been done with the WEEE and ROHS Directives in European. However, in that this is an international standards effort it will probably have even a wider impact.

Revision of IEC 61508 is undergoing significant debate. It was not clear that the original document was to be used in conjunction with other IEC standards prior to its passage – it therefore, did not go out to the other IEC TCs for comments prior to its passage. This oversight will be corrected in the next revision cycle.

IEC Work Shop is being held in Beijing in May 2006 to help make the connection between regulators and standards writers. The potential outcome of this could be to make the process of IEC standards becoming regulatory standards in China much more seamless. This clearly seems to be the trend of the future.

Working Group Reports

IEC 62046 – is an attempt to generate a standard out of a technical specification for personnel sensing protection equipment. More time is needed for its conclusion.

WG7 – Safety Control Systems For Machinery - Guidance on use of IEC 62061 – This document should be a technical report rather than standard. Italian proposal: “ISO 13849-1 should reference IEC 62061 instead of IEC 61508.” There was much discussion on this proposal. Out of this discussion came the following decision – “TC44 instructs TC44 WG7 liaison group to meet with ISO/TC 199 WG6 to discuss the revision of ISO 13849-1 and IEC 62061.” The goal is to get a pilot standard based on IEC 61508 – consistent with all documents.

TC71 has been disbanned – A maintenance TC is need for IEC 61310-(Parts 1-4) Indication, Marking, and Actuation. TC44 – made the decision to look at this further to see if it has merits to take over part or all of these standards.

CEN/CENELEC - reports problems with their appointed consultants requiring changes to the EN document after the IEC document has already been adopted. This was a significant problem in the latest revision of 60204-1. Although, TC44X members with the help of TC44 members successfully worked through these issues raised on this document successfully. This however, was still reported as a major problem and committee passed a resolution in an attempt to get CEN/CENELEC to correct this problem.

Vote was taken to make the WG work on vision based safety devices as a technical report instead of a technical specification.

EMO working group is intended to harmonizing the ISO and IEC EMO documents – this is still in process.

IEC 61496-1 WG working on amendment to draw parallels between SIL and safety circuit types.

Liaison Reports

ISO TC199 Risk assessment document – ISO 14121 will be split into two – Part 1 General Requirements and Part 2 Practical Guidance (Part 2 will become a technical report) The concern was expressed about having a workable method of risk assessment.

IEC 60947-5-8 Developing a standard for enabling switches as they relate to 60204 – (two handed switch). This is not a standard for the control system, just for the switch.

Question should the third position in a three position switch be an emergency stop? Committee’s answer is NO – it is not an emergency stop.

There is work on an IEC standard 61800-5-2 for electrical speed drive systems. This is still in the CD stage.

TC64 - is changing the name of IEC 60364 from “Electrical installations of buildings” to “Low voltage electrical installations”

TC44X - reports that the third amendment to the Machinery Directive is going forward should be fully approved by next spring.

Next Meeting – Berlin Next Fall