Governing bodies in Europe and the US have introduced regulations defining safety requirements in the design of home appliances. In Europe these requirements are defined by IEC60730 and in the US by UL1998. These regulations require the inclusion of features that will avoid failure or at least ensure any failure in the appliance does not present a safety hazard to the user. Manufacturers of home appliances must therefore consider how their products will be designed to comply with these requirements.

As a supplier of microelectronics to home appliance manufacturers, NEC Electronics has had to consider the impact of these standards for its customers and their products when using NEC's 8, 16 or 32-bit microcontrollers and proposes some possible solutions.