HIGH-SPEED, LOW-POWER, EXCELLENT EMC: LVDS FOR ON-BOARD DATA HANDLING Dr SM Parkes Applied Computing, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK Tel: 44 1382 345194, Fax: 44 1382 345509, Email:
[email protected] ABSTRACT Since the endorsement of the IEEE 1355 by ESA and major companies involved in the space industry, the technology has The capabilities of remote-sensing instrumentation are been migrated successfully into radiation-tolerant, space- developing rapidly. As a consequence the data rates being qualifiable components. Daimler-Benz Aerospace and TEMIC handled on-board spacecraft are increasing. have developed a component (SMCS) which provides three LVDS (Low Voltage Differential Signaling) provides a means IEEE 1355 compatible links and a processor interface (Ref. 4). of sending data along a twisted pair cable at high speed, with Demonstration systems have been and are being developed for low power and with excellent EMC performance. These both multi-DSP processing systems (Ref. 5) and for large features make LVDS ideal for satellite on-board data-handling capacity, solid-state data storage systems (Ref. 6). High level applications. protocols have been developed to support interprocessor communication (Ref. 7). Software support for the SMCS link This paper assesses the suitability of LVDS for space devices has been provided within the Eonic Virtuoso real-time applications as part of a data-handling system based on IEEE operating system for both the TSC21020 DSP processor and 1355 comparing it against other types of line driver/receiver. the ERC32 SPARC 32-bit processor (Ref. 8). It explains how LVDS can be used together with IEEE 1355 to form the basis for a powerful on-board data handling system, The Digital Interface Circuit Evaluation (DICE) study was which is capable of handling data from current and future, initiated by ESTEC to take stock of these developments, to high data-rate instruments.