What is the DO-254 guidance regarding requirements traceability?

Answer

Requirements traceability as defined in the RTCA/DO-254 document is quoted as follows:

RTCA/DO-254 page 66 10.4.1. Traceability Data Hardware traceability establishes a correlation between the requirements, detailed design, implementation and verification data that facilitates configuration control, modification and verification of the hardware item. Hardware traceability data should include:

1. A correlation between the system requirements allocated to hardware and the requirements.

2. A correlation between the requirements and the hardware detailed design data.

3. A correlation between the hardware detailed design data and the as-built hardware item or assembly.

4. A correlation between the requirements, including derived hardware requirements, and detailed design data and the verification procedures and results.

5. The results of a traceability analysis.

In other words, this means that the applicant must do the following:

• Capture and manage FPGA requirements from the system spec

• Establish links from requirements back to system spec

• Establish links from requirements to conceptual design data

• Establish links from requirements to detailed design data and implementation

• Establish links from requirements to simulation and device testing results

• Capture derived requirements and establish links to the detailed design data, implementation and results

• Generate traceability reports

• Manage and baseline requirements data and traceability links with appropriate configuration control