PMC FDDI Adapter selected for NATO AWACS Programme

Canadian solution provider DY4 Systems Inc. Canada, specialising in the supply of harsh environment VME products selected C²I² Systems' PMC FDDI Adapter to compliment their VME PMC host carrier card solutions. The PMC FDDI Adapter will be used in the NATO AWACS upgrade programme by Alcatel Bell N.V. and Telephonics due to FDDI's unique low emission control levels, high bandwidth and high efficiency network.

The project involves ruggedising the PMC FDDI Adapater, which has been integrated with DY4's level 100 PowerPC VME boards (SVME178). C²I² Systems and DY4 have co-operated in the design of the ruggedised version of the PMC FDDI product.

C²I² Systems has developed VxWorks FDDI drivers in BSD V4.3 format. This allows any VxWorks application user to interface to the FDDI driver by using the standard VxWorks TCP/IP stack. The drivers are offered with all C²I² Systems' FDDI product ranges and compliment the already extensive library of drivers on offer. Built-In Test (BIT) software in VxWorks has been developed to test the hardware integrity of the PMC FDDI Adapter as there is a requirement to test 95% of the FDDI functionality.

Some of the stringent requirements placed on the PMC FDDI Adapter are :

Operating temperature : -40°C to +71°C
Low Power consumption : 1,450 A typically
Shock and vibration specifications for Avionics (Inhabited Cargo)
95% humidity non-condensing
No degradation due to altitude and depressurisation effects

For more information on the PMC FDDI Adapter, please refer to "PMC FDDI Shortform Specification".