Synthesis for DO-254 Design Assurance and other Safety-Critical Design Processes

Typically design projects have stringent performance and cost requirements. Therefore designers, and in turn synthesis tools, have historically tended to focus on achieving three main design goals—timing performance, design area and tool runtime. This serves the needs of most design flows. However, in military and aerospace applications where design assurance is critical, a synthesis tool may fall short. Planning is a key part of a DO-254 project. During the planning phase, the project team must document their tool usage as part of the flow. This information includes the tools, environment, versions, and planned usage (features and flows) of the tools. Therefore, understanding the functions and features of synthesis and how to use a tool for the most assured synthesis operation is essential for planning, before engaging in the actual design work of a DO-254 project. This paper describe some aspects of synthesis, which could—if not well understood and managed—result in non-compliance with DO-254 objectives.