DO-254, published with EUROCAE ED-80 in 2000, is the hardware counterpart of DO-178C. The FAA recognises it through advisory circular AC 20-152 as a means of compliance for the design assurance of airborne electronic hardware. It applies to line replaceable units, circuit board assemblies, programmable devices such as FPGAs and PLDs, ASICs and, in principle, commercial off-the-shelf parts.
The standard separates simple items, whose behaviour can be fully shown by a combination of deterministic tests and analysis, from complex items, which cannot. Complex hardware, typically programmable logic and ASICs, receives the full set of objectives: a plan for hardware aspects of certification, requirements capture and tracing, independent design and verification, and a hardware accomplishment summary. Rigour rises with the assurance level, from E (no safety effect) to A (catastrophic).
In drones and eVTOL aircraft, DO-254 evidence typically accompanies flight-control computers, actuator controllers, power-management units and radar-altimeter or datalink electronics that contain FPGAs. A datasheet may state “DO-254 DAL A/B”, “DO-254 design process” or “DO-254 ready”.
A frequent mistake is to read “ready” or “designed to” as a completed assurance programme. Such wording usually means only that the process is followed internally, without the plans, evidence and certification-authority involvement that approval of an installed system requires. A second mistake is to assume that a DO-254 level and a DO-160 test category are related; DO-254 concerns the design process, while DO-160 concerns environmental qualification, and a unit often needs both.
