Exploring the Differences of FPGAs and Microcontrollers for their Use in Safety-Critical Embedded Applications

Nowadays industrial embedded systems are increasingly used in safety-critical applications. These embedded systems are based on different hardware platforms, reaching from microcontrollers to programmable logic devices. These different hardware platforms lead to fundamental differences in design. Major differences result from the different hardware architectures and their robustness and reliability as well as on the according differences in the software design process. In this paper, our current work dealing with different hardware platforms used in embedded systems and their influence on the safety and reliability of the overall system is presented.