Router IP macrocell for radiation tolerant SpaceWire Networking

New scientific missions require the capability to handle large amount of data for earth observation, atmospheric sounding, planetary exploration. The European Space Agency recently proposed a serial data link standard, the SpaceWire (ECSS-E-50-12A), to facilitate the set up of on-board high-speed and reliable networks, to reduce system integration costs, to promote compatibility between equipment and to encourage the re-use of digital interfaces across different missions. To this aim this paper presents the VLSI design of configurable SpaceWire router and interface IT cores, the first in state-of-the-art compliant with the newest standard extensions Protocol IDentifier and Remote Memory Access Protocol. The IP cells have been integrated and tested on radiation-tolerant antifuse FPGA device by Actel, in the framework of an ESA space project The achieved performances of 8 SpaceWire links routing, 100 Mbits/s data-rate, 1.2 W power consumption, 300 Krad radiation tolerance meet the requirements of planned ESA space missions. The proposed SpaceWire IPs simplify the on board connectivity, provide network redundancy and guarantee to handle very high bandwidth data flows.