The use of COTS devices are increasing in the aerospace equipement. We need more and more features on the electronic boards (CBAs – Circuit Board Assemblies). To get more features on the CBA is not enough, the CBA should be reliable and safe. In other word the COTS devices cannot be randomly selected.
To overcome this difficulty of choosing components that comply with aeronautical standards the certification authorities such us EASA or FAA, provided guidances to choose COTS for Airborne Systems. For example EASA and FAA provide documents to help hardware designers to select the components comply with aeronautical standards. EASA AMC-20-152A, FAA AC 20-152. These documents provides guidance for the development assurance of CBAs.
The purpose of these documents is to help the hardware designer to comply their design with airborne standards. These are not mandatory and the hardware designers could take into accound as guidance another documents as means of compliance but they must meet the releveant requirements and ensure that the alternative guidances cover the same level of safety and be approved by EASA or FAA.
The AMC 20-152A does not give advices only for COTS devices but also for COTS IP (intellectual Properties) for FPGA developments and for CBA developments. The hardware designers are guided step by step to choose the COTS devices, COTS IPand their managements.
Regarding the multicore chips there is a documents that is written by Thales Avionics and approved by EASA. It is a real reference that a HW designer can use it as a guidance to design a CBA fo airborne systems. Here is the link to get check the document : FINAL STUDY REPORT (europa.eu) . It can be downloaded for free.
Conclusion
To conclude, in aeronautic hardware there are several documents and standards for every step of the design. You must be careful when you use a document to develop your design because the document has to be approved by the certification authorities. If it is not the case you can still use the document but not refer it on your design documentation.