PCI Bridge to Instruments and Telecommunication Systems

A report describes a prototype system interface assembly (SIA) that performs the functions of a compact, radiation-hard application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to be built subsequently. The SIA ASIC would be installed in a spacecraft, where it would function as a peripheralcomponent interface (PCI) with (a) four scientific instruments that generate highspeed serial data streams and (b) either of two spacecraft telecommunication systems — the Small Deep Space Transponder (SDST) or the Space Transponding Modem (STM). Once configured, the serial uplink and downlink channels would conform to the SDST serial interface protocol or the STM modified serial peripheral interface protocol. In the SDST configuration, the downlink could be further configured for Reed-Solomon coding, for turbo coding, for bypass mode, and/or to enable a pseudo-randomizer. The SIA ASIC would operate in conjunction with a bus controller/remote terminal/monitor ASIC (United Technologies BCRTM or equivalent) to provide the control and status interfaces to the telecommunication systems and/or other systems that conform to MIL-STD-1553 devices. The ASIC would control, and would serve as an interface to, memory circuitry configurable by the user as external first-in/first-out buffers for each of the telecommunication and instrument interfaces.