This part of IEC 61508 contains an overview of various safety techniques and measures relevant to IEC 61508-2 and IEC 61508-3.

The references should be considered as basic references to methods and tools or as examples, and may not represent the state of the art.

IEC 61508-1, IEC 61598-2, IEC 61508-3 and IEC 61508-4 are basic safety publications, although this status does not apply in the context of low complexity E/E/PE safety-related systems (see 3.4.3 of IEC 61508-4). As basic safety publications, they are intended for use by technical committees in the preparation of standards in accordance with the principles contained in IEC Guide 104 and ISO/IEC Guide 51. IEC 61508-1, IEC 61508-2, IEC 61508-3 and IEC 61508-4 are also intended for use as stand-alone publications. The horizontal safety function of this international standard does not apply to medical equipment in compliance with the IEC 60601 series.

One of the responsibilities of a technical committee is, wherever applicable, to make use of basic safety publications in the preparation of its publications. In this context, the requirements, test methods or test conditions of this basic safety publication will not apply unless specifically referred to or included in the publications prepared by those technical committees.

Figure 1 shows the overall framework for parts 1 to 7 of IEC 61508 and indicates the role that IEC 61508-7 plays in the achievement of functional safety for E/E/PE safety-related systems.