There is a trend in the aviation industry to adopt so-called System-on-Chip (SoC) technology at a high scale integration level also in airborne critical applications. The SoC are mostly available as Commercial of-the-shelf (COTS) devices. Due to the high production rate and production volume they cost significantly less than those developed intentionally for aviation applications.
The subject of the study is to investigate the safety implications of the use of System- On-Chip (SoC) technology in airborne critical applications which is implemented and integrated using Commercial Of-the-Shelf (COTS) cores and devices that were not designed for critical application or that were not designed following ED-80.
The study focused on an assessment of the actual SoC and core supplier's best practices with respect to design assurance level and ED-80 objectives, and the foreseen evolutions of these practices. A survey was performed concerning data related to SoC cores available on the market with the intent to provide details on development assurance data (design documentation, verification, errata management) which would allow a safe use of these SoC in airborne systems.
