|
|
Let me provide a little more background information. If you want to learn more about DO-178B, this Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B gives a brief overview in the first few paragraphs. Just scanning the following paragraphs gives you a sense of what is involved.
There are 5 levels of DO-178B. A system is classified into one of these levels based on the severity of consequences of failure. The level of effort between Level D (minor consequences) and Level A (catastrophic consequences) increases exponentially. There is also Level E certification, which basically says that the failure of this software will not cause any impact on safety. Level E certification requires little to no access to the source code, just a failure assessment of the big picture. A software that meets DO-178B Level E in one particular application can genuinely claim to be "DO-178B Certified" If you defer to Marketing, guess what they are going to claim?
When you throw over some Previously Developed Software (PDS in FAA jargon) to some consultants and tell them "here's a huge check and the source code, get me a DO-178B certificate for this" the best you can do is Level D. Level D will get you "Failure is noticeable, but has a lesser impact than a Major failure (for example, causing passenger inconvenience or a routine flight plan change)" [verbatim from the Wikipedia article]. This classification will allow you to install seat back entertainment systems. It will not even get you to climate control systems, because that will cause passenger "discomfort" rather than mere "inconvenience" and the discomfort bumps you up to Level C which has twice as many "objectives". At Level C not only do you not get any credit for PDS, but rather PDS become a heavy anchor around your neck as you try and swim upstream because the software was developed without the processes in place and management will never sign up for a ground-up rewrite.
I have no doubt that nVidia and ATI chips are flying around in airplanes and are DO-178B Level E certified. It will not surprise me if there are systems that are certified to DO-178B Level D. But a primary flight display, which is where the whole discussion of photo-realistic terrain started, will be classified as Level A or Level B. What make things worse is that the more a device does, the more code it requires to do it and the higher its certification level becomes for all its code.
On that note, I will take Tom's lead and decline to get into any more details or any further discussion on this subject.
Regards,
Hamid
Tom McReynolds wrote:
Hi Kevin,
Sorry, I can't go into detail on this stuff; our Marketing considers it confidential. I'm only a s/w guy, so I can't tell you what's required to get their interest anyway. If you know someone who has a project that uses our GPUs in an avionics application, let me know directly and I'll pass the info on to the right people.
As for how to get through DO178B, it's not easy :-). There are consultants out there that you can work with, who know all the ins and outs.
-Tom
Kevin Stallard wrote:
Tom,
Do you know what it takes to get the test cases, test results, and other information the FAA will want to see when certifying a product using your devices? Do you know what kind of quantities are required by NVIDA before it will produce that kind of documentation? Finally, do you know who we would need to contact to get more information about this kind of effort?
Thanks for the heads up on this.
Kevin
L2K-291
N969RJ
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Lancair Mailing List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] *On Behalf Of *Tom McReynolds
*Sent:* Saturday, August 25, 2007 3:36 PM
*To:* lml@lancaironline.net
*Subject:* [LML] Re: fallability in the digital age
Hi Brent,
I also work at NVIDIA. I'm a senior s/w manager in the Embedded s/w group; my team writes drivers for 3D and system s/w. We do certify our chips to Do178b; they are currently flying in a number of aircraft.
-Tom
--
For archives and unsub http://mail.lancaironline.net:81/lists/lml/List.html
--
For archives and unsub http://mail.lancaironline.net:81/lists/lml/List.html
|
|