Hercules (microcontroller)

Hercules is a line of ARM architecture-based microcontrollers from Texas Instruments built around one or more ARM Cortex cores. This "Hercules safety microcontroller platform" includes a series of microcontrollers specifically targeted for Functional Safety applications, through such hardware-base fault correction/detection features as dual cores that can run in lock-step, full path ECC, automated self testing of memory and logic, peripheral redundancy, and monitor/checker cores.

ARM architectures

The ARM logo
Designer	ARM Holdings

32-bit architectures (Cortex)

Version	ARMv8-R, ARMv7-A, ARMv7-R, ARMv7E-M, ARMv7-M, ARMv6-M
Encoding	32-bit except Thumb2 extensions use mixed 16- and 32-bit instructions.
Endianness	Bi (Little as default)
Extensions	Thumb-2 (mandatory since ARMv7), NEON, Jazelle, FPv4-SP
Registers
General-purpose	16 x 32-bit integer registers including PC and SP
Floating point	Up to 32 × 64-bit registers,[1] SIMD/floating-point (optional)

This line includes the TMS470M, TMS570 and RM4 families. These families were "designed specifically for IEC 61508 and ISO 26262 safety critical applications".^[2] However, they differ significantly in the degree of support for these safety standards:^[3]

TMS470

• Value Line Transportation and Safety MCUs
• Supports Safety for
  • IEC 61508 systems

RM4

• High Performance Industrial and Medical Safety MCUs
• Developed to Safety Standards
  • IEC 61508 SIL-3

TMS570

• High Performance Transportation and Safety MCUs
• Developed to Safety Standards
  • IEC 61508 SIL-3
  • ISO 26262 ASIL D

In particular, TMS570 support for ASIL D is accomplished through dual lock-step cores.

See also

• IEC 61508 (Functional Safety Standard)
• ISO 26262 (Automotive Functional Safety Standard)
• Qorivva, a comparable 32-bit PowerPC safety microprocessor line from Freescale