Practical Use of FPGAs and IP in DO-254 Compliant Systems

www.xilinx.com 1 © Copyright 2011 Xilinx, Inc. XILINX, the Xilinx logo, Virtex, Spartan, ISE, and other designated brands included herein are trademarks of Xilinx in the United States and other countries. PCI, PCI Express, PCIe, and PCI-X are trademarks of PCI-SIG. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. There exists little doubt that a fully compliant DO-254 process is required for custom FPGA designs and for the custom intellectual property (IP) that resides within them, but how can a designer use commercially available IP within a DO-254 compliant system? Here is where ambiguities enter the DO-254 process. This white paper addresses where and when to use DO-254 and DO-178 in FPGA designs and recommends practical means for employing widely used commercial off the shelf (COTS) IP in custom FPGA designs that target avionics applications. This white paper is meant to open discussion on these topics, but it is not to be construed as official guidance regarding DO-254 application to IP cores or systems on chips. Similar topics are the subject of the joint US and European DO-254 User Group papers, which are directed to influence policy making in both of these subject areas. The methods that are presented in this white paper should be discussed with the appropriate avionics certification personnel prior to application on any avionics program. White Paper: Xilinx FPGAs