Recent developments in standardization related to EMC and functional safety

Issues related to electromagnetic compatibility are dealt with in a broad range of standards whereas the main focus lies in the IEC 61000-X-Y series of EMC publications. This series of standards, technical specifications and technical reports is further accompanied by a lot of product specific standards. Since several years the topic of functional safety of electrical and electronic systems has become more and more important and this topic is related to EMC insofar as an adequate immunity against electromagnetic phenomena is required to prevent safety-related systems and the equipment used in them from being harmfully affected, i.e. to avoid an unsafe behavior of such systems when being exposed to electromagnetic phenomena. Hence the need was identified to merge the topics of EMC and functional safety, respectively, not only from a technical point of view rather than in terms of standardization as well. This paper describes the current situation regarding standards, with the emphasis on IEC standards, dealing with both areas and it discusses the challenges which appear in the frame of working out standards considering the approaches in both the areas appropriately.