ABSTRACT
Some electronic applications are related to safety-of-life quality services, that is, services that must assure the safety of users or customers lives. Such an important task needs a life-cycle philosophy for the product strongly di¥erent from the one used in the development of other simpler commercial applications. For this reason all over the world, norms that describe the mandatory life-cycle management for fail-safe devices exist and must be applied by designers, veriŸers, assessors, etc. œe aim of this chapter is to provide the basic information needed for understanding how the world of fail-safe electronics is di¥erent from the one tied to standard applications in which human life is not involved.
