STEP 7 Safety provides extensive functions for the generation of safety-related automation applications in the SIMATIC Safety F system.

SIMATIC Safety is certified for use in safety mode to:

• SIL3 (Safety Integrity Level) in accordance with IEC 61508:2010
• Performance Level (PL) e in accordance with ISO 13849-1: 2015 or in accordance with EN ISO 13849-1: 2015

The documentation of the safety application is part of the acceptance documentation in accordance with the Machinery Directive or IEC 61508 and corresponding applicable standards. STEP 7 Safety supports validation of the safety program with standard-compliant program documentation that is generated automatically at the press of a button.

Further functions:

• Library with a host of fail-safe logic and application blocks
• Separation of time-critical and non-time-critical tasks by 2 runtime groups
• Inheritance of module parameters by reusing via project library
• Unambiguous marking of fail-safe components, parameters, blocks, etc.
• Safety Administration Editor for support in the following tasks:
  • Display of Status and signature of the safety program
  • Display of safety mode status
  • Creation/organization of F runtime groups
  • Display of information about F blocks
  • Definition/modification of access protection
  • Definition/modification of general settings for the safety program
• S7-1500F/S7-1200F UDTs for fail-safe data types
• Function signature for document history down to the block level
• Cycle and execution times of the fail-safe modules available as fail-safe data
• Full PLCSim compatibility for fail-safe S7-1500 and S7-1200
• Know-how protection for fail-safe blocks
• Multiuser support
• Openness support for a host of fail-safe hardware and software functions
• Shared device for fail-safe modules ET200 SP/MP/S/M/Pro
• Station upload for consistent hardware and software uploading of all project data (including fail-safe project data) from a fail-safe S7-1500 CPU¹⁾ (from firmware version 2.1)
• Configuration control for SIMATIC fail-safe I/O
• Global F-IO status block for the central recording and further processing of channel, communications and I/O error messages
• Fail-safe communication via PROFIsafe

Investment protection

Projects as from STEP 7 Safety V13 SP1 can be directly upgraded to STEP 7 Safety V14 SP1.
Upgrading of projects from previous TIA Safety versions (V11 ... V13) is carried out on the basis of STEP 7 Safety Advanced V13 SP1 or V13 SP2 (latest update recommended).
By migrating the program code and hardware configuration, it is possible to migrate S7 Distributed Safety V5.4 SP5 projects to STEP 7 Safety Advanced V14 SP1.
A compatibility mode is not supported.

System requirements and compatibility with other SIMATIC products

STEP7 Safety Advanced V14 SP1 requires STEP 7 Professional V14 SP1.

STEP 7 Safety Basic V14 SP1 requires at least STEP 7 Basic V14 SP1.

Supported operating systems and hardware requirements can be examined with STEP 7 Professional V14 SP1. The same compatibility with other SIMATIC products applies as to STEP 7 Basic / Professional V14 SP1.