RTCA/DO-254 Data Package for Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Graphical Processors

RTCA/DO-254 Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware is a set of considerations or guidelines for the assurance of electronic hardware in the certification of an aircraft. Section 2 through 9 of the document contains a set of objectives that need to be met and a description of the associated evidence required to show that they have been satisfied. RTCA/DO-254 is primarily intended for the assurance of electronic hardware that is designed and built for a specific aircraft system. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular (AC) 20-152 issued in July, 2005 provides a means of compliance to airworthiness regulations for complex custom coded components. Examples of such components are programmable logic devices such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) and application specific integrated circuits (ASIC). The advisory circular specifically states that there is no intention by the FAA for commercial off the shelf (COTS) microprocessors to comply with RTCA/DO-254. Section 11.2 of RTCA/DO-254 addresses the use of COTS components in safety critical avionics systems. COTS components may be a commercially available device such as a graphics ASIC, a motor controller ASIC, a power supply assembly or a ruggedized processor board. This section of RTCA/DO-254 outlines considerations for gaining certification credit for the use of devices or subassemblies that are procured commercially and were not necessarily designed or intended for use in avionics systems. This paper addresses some of the issues involved in getting the data needed to establish suitability of COTS components in avionics systems