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Rockwell Collins brings a new approach to safety critical verification using Questa Verification IP

“The biggest challenge on the DO-254 front is traceability — from the requirements through the verification cases and procedures to a result,” observes Lee C. Smith, Principal EE of ASIC Engineering in Rockwell Collins’ Commercial Systems division.

Rockwell Collins collaborates with Siemens EDA to develop a new methodology and technology enhancements that ease DO-254 compliance for complex airborne electronics hardware (AEH) designs by modifying the way assertions are tracked and recorded using augmented Questa verification IP (QVIP) and by using VIP to accelerate coverage of standard protocols. The approach presented improves requirements tracing and helps assure Designated Engineering Representatives (DER) that these requirements have been met.

DO-254 Standard

DO-254 is a standard enforced by the FAA that requires certification of avionics suppliers’ designs and design processes to ensure reliability of airborne systems. The DO-254 compliance process ensures that all specified design requirements have been verified in a repeatable and Siemens Digital Industries Software Rockwell Collins A new approach to safety-critical verification using Questa Verification IP demonstrable way. All the requirements of the system must be well specified, and each of those requirements must be demonstrated to have been verified. The key to this is traceability.

An assertion-based verification (ABV) methodology is widely used to handle the complexity of present day airborne electronics hardware designs in the avionics industry. Requirements tracing using an ABV methodology can be accomplished by associating targeted functionality from the requirements to assertion execution results. This process, as developed by Rockwell Collins, includes a simulation log, an assertion waveform, and assertion coverage.

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