S7 F/FH systems

Common engineering system for basic process control system and safety instrumented system

The process industry frequently features complex technological sequences with high safety demands, and faults and failures in the process automation could have fatal consequences for personnel, machines, plants and the environment. Therefore process safety is of particular significance. The safety technology used must reliably detect errors in the process and also its own internal errors, and automatically set the plant/application to a safe state if an error is detected.

S7 F/FH Systems is the comprehensive range of products and services from Siemens for safe, fault-tolerant applications in the process industry. This is characterized by:

• Safe communication via PROFIBUS with PROFIsafe
• Safe communication also via PROFIBUS PA with PROFIsafe
• ET 200 distributed I/O systems with safety-related I/O modules
• User-friendly process visualization, including safety-relevant fault messages, via the optional operator system
• Engineering system with S7 F Systems software package and SIMATIC Safety Matrix
• AS 412F/FH, AS 414F/FH and AS 417F/FH safety-related automation systems
  The safety-related automation systems of the S7 F/FH-System are based on the hardware of the CPU 412H, CPU 414H or CPU 417H automation systems that are extended with the S7 F Systems software package to include safety functions. All F/FH systems listed are TÜV-certified and comply with the safety requirements up to SIL 3 according to IEC 61508. There are two design variants:
  • Single-channel (with one CPU, safety-related)
  • High-availability (with redundant CPUs, safety-related and fault-tolerant)

S7 F/FH Systems permits complete integration of safety engineering into the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system. The Basic Process Control System (BPCS) and Safety Instrumented System fuse together to form a uniform and innovative complete system. The advantages of this fusion are quite clear:

• One common controller platform
• One common engineering system
• No separate safety bus – standard and safety-related communication take place on the same fieldbus (PROFIBUS with PROFIsafe)
• Mixed operation of standard and safety-related I/O modules in remote I/O stations
• Uniform data management – no complex data exchange between BPCS and safety system
• Integration of safety-related applications into process visualization on the operator station
• Automatic integration of safety-related fault messages with time tagging into the process control system
• Integration of safety-related hardware into the SIMATIC PCS 7 asset management for diagnostics and preventive maintenance

Using the S7 F Systems engineering tool, you can parameterize the AS 412F/FH, AS 414F/FH and AS 417F/FH automation systems as well as the safety-related F-modules of the ET 200 I/O systems.

Alternatively, the S7 F Systems engineering tool can also be used with STEP 7 incl. the CFC option package.

Using Continuous Function Charts (CFC) and predefined function blocks from the F-block library of S7 F Systems, you can configure safety-related applications simply, efficiently and without any time-consuming familiarization.

However, this is even simpler, more convenient and faster using the SIMATIC Safety Matrix based on CFC. The configuration tool functioning according to the principle of a Cause&Effect matrix automatically creates complex safety programs once you have assigned the events (causes) occurring during a process to exactly defined reactions (effects).