Design, Test, and Certification Issues for Complex Integrated Circuits.

This report provides an overview of complex integrated circuit technology, focusing particularly upon application specific integrated circuits. This report is intended to assist FAA certification engineers in making safety assessments of new technologies. It examines complex integrated circuit technology, focusing on three fields design, test, and certification. It provides the reader with the background and a basic understanding of the fundamentals of these fields. Also included is material on the development environment, including languages and tools. Application specific integrated circuits are widely used in Boeing 777 fly-by-wire aircraft. Safety issues abound for these integrated circuits when they are used in safety-critical applications. Since control laws are now executed in silicon and transmitted from one integrated circuit to another, reliability issues for these integrated circuits take on a new importance. This report identifies certification risks relating to the use of complex integrated circuits in fly-by-wire applications.