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Embedded computing applications for defense and aerospace encompass such a broad range of performance requirements, many of them so time-and bandwidth-critical that only highly optimized solutions will guarantee a true real-time response or the on-time delivery of data from a critical sensor. As the embedded computing leader, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing has the capability to bridge the gap between mission success or failure with a range of highly inventive, open architecture communications and switching products deployable throughout the environmental range from the development laboratory to the high performance combat aircraft. Based on open standards such as VMEbus, PMC, PCI, Fibre Channel and Serial FPDP these products extend yet further the breadth of Curtiss-Wright’s expertize and our ability to deliver the most cost-effective, off-the-shelf solutions for military programs.

There are many applications where time-dependent data is shared between computers on a regular basis. These computers may be of dissimilar types running dissimilar operating systems. Networks such as Ethernet or MIL-STD-1553B and many others provide the capability to share data by multicasting but in every case the software overhead to manage the transfers through the network introduces considerable latency to the transaction as well as requiring processor time at each sending and receiving node. Curtiss-Wright has designed its SCRAMNet technology to eliminate these problems. SCRAMNet provides a direct, high bandwidth path between computer memories using a ring topology. It is independent of the computer for its operation, the hardware on the board is responsible for replicating any newly written data from one memory into all the other memories connected to the ring. SCRAMNet GT, running at 2.5Gbps, is based on Fibre Channel’s physical layer incorporating 8b/10b encoding and CRC error detection. It is particularly suited to simulation, virtual reality, training, telemetry and instrumentation applications where many computers must share the same data, or even streaming video from a number of sources, and must operate synchronously with each other with no discernible jitter or latency.

Immunity from electro-magnetic interference, high bandwidth and low latency have made Fibre Channel the first choice high performance fabric for interconnecting military avionics modules and subsystems, replacing many older standards such as MIL-STD-1553B. Easily integrated into an embedded subsystem with either SCSI or IP protocols, Curtiss-Wright also offers a lightweight Fibre Channel protocol where performance and latency are critical factors. Our Fibre Channel products are designed to the PMC form-factor, operating at 1Gbps, 2Gbps and 4Gbps. These products also support copper or fiber connections and offer both front panel I/O and backplane connection for harsh environment deployed applications.

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Building on Curtiss-Wright’s long tradition of developing innovative technologies for industry-wide adoption, Serial FPDP is standardized as ANSI/VITA 17.1-2003. Serial FPDP is a point-to-point high speed data link operating at 1.0 or 2.5Gbps designed to continuously stream sensor data such as radar, sonar or video from the sensor to a digital signal processing system. Serial FPDP links can be implemented in copper or fiber allowing both high performance and physical separation between sensor and processor, such as might be required by towed array or dipping sonars. It has a very efficient protocol overhead making 97% of the available bandwidth available for payload. Because it does not require any embedded processing at the sensor to serialize the data, it is simple to implement with any sensor type. Serial FPDP can be used wherever uninterrupted flows of large amounts of data are required to be moved from a single source to one, or many, receivers for concurrent processing or recording.

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