DO-254 Training: Learn This Important Standard for Aviation Hardware Safety

DO-254 is the counterpart to the software standard DO-178C.

With DO-254/ED-80, certification authorities have specified that?avionics equipment?contain both hardware and software, and each is critical to?safe operation?of?aircraft.

Published by RTCA and EUROCAE, DO-254 is applicable to such electronic hardware items as:

• Line Replaceable Units?(quickly replaceable components)
• Circuit board assemblies?(CBA)
• Custom micro-coded components such as?field programmable gate arrays?(FPGA),?programmable logic devices?(PLD), and?application-specific integrated circuits?(ASIC), including any associated macro functions
• Integrated technology components such as?hybrid integrated circuits?and?multi-chip modules
• Commercial off-the-shelf?(COTS) components

DO-254 classifies electronic hardware items into simple or complex categories with five levels of compliance, A through E, which depend on the effect a?failure?of the hardware will have on the operation of the aircraft.

Level A is the most stringent, defined as "catastrophic" effect (e.g., loss of the aircraft), while a failure of Level E hardware will not affect the?safety?of the aircraft. Meeting Level A compliance for complex electronic hardware requires a much higher level of?verification and validation?than Level E compliance.

Experts in DO-254 insist that the requirement terminology is important in the DO-254 process, and helps identify where documentation and verification effort is required, versus where precedent and experience may be sufficient. For example:

• Certified: An entire system is certified and components may have different certification levels
• Certifiable: System component achieving its highest certification status before certifying it within the system
• Qualified: Certification of a tool that does not have safety requirements

Want to know more? Tonex offers DO-254?Training: Avionics Hardware, a 2-day course that discusses various angles of DO-254 guidelines and will help you develop and implement this standard in your organization.

DO-254, aka Eurocae ED-80, is an official avionics guideline, which demonstrates strategies of design assurance associated with airborne electronic hardware. DO-254 covers the required information comprehensively from the conceptual design, through planning, designating, executing, verifying, to validation.?

For more information, questions, comments,?contact us.