(Product update) (Papers/solutions) (Why SpaceWire users buy from 4Links)

Welcome to this first of a series of newsletters about solutions for users of SpaceWire, solutions that help you build and test SpaceWire systems, and solutions that SpaceWire itself provides.

Thank you, first of all, to the many users who have provided us with such positive feedback. Users have praised our quality, have solved longstanding problems quickly, and have commented that capabilities we provide that are ahead of anything else available for SpaceWire. They like the easy upgrades, and the confidence that they can evolve and grow the test equipment as their needs progress. This all suggests that we are getting somewhere in our goal of saving you bugs, time and money, so that you can build 'Networks that Work'.

Many of the comments have come from users of the 'Diagnostic SpaceWire Interface' (DSI), whose error injection and detailed analysis have proved invaluable for both detecting and resolving all sorts of bugs. Two important enhancements have been made to the DSI during 2007, one to provide eight active ports, with all the instrumentation that makes the DSI so effective, and the other to synchronize between boxes so that Time Tags (and synchronized outputs) can be synchronized over an entire SpaceWire test system.

The synchronization between boxes works with a variety of our products, including two new products that meet other needs that you have told us about. These are the SpaceWire Packet Generator, and the Multi-link SpaceWire Recorder.

The 'SpaceWire Packet Generator' (SPG) removes the performance dependency on the computer, its operating system and interface. Up to 12 dedicated packet processors are available, one for each direction of each port, together giving many GOPS (giga operations per second). These processors enable the SPG to transmit, receive, check and respond to packets with sub-microsecond latency and well over a Gbit/s total throughput. The SPG's packet generator and checker can use all the same diagnostic instrumentation that is available for the DSI. The bandwidth compression offered by the SPG also makes it ideal for remote test over the Internet, permitting inter-partner test for collaborative projects take place sooner and thus find and fix problems before they incur cost and delay.

The 'Multi-link SpaceWire Recorder' (MSR) provides passive logging of SpaceWire transfers between devices and subsystems, on up to four links per MSR unit. It records packets in both directions of each SpaceWire link, with time tags on start and end of each packet. Software is provided to help manage and search the recordings. Time Tags can be synchronized across a system, even if the MSR recordings are being made onto different computers. Low-level SpaceWire errors can be also be recorded and displayed as a waveform trace complete with protocol decode.

A product update is attached, with more information about these and other products, and also introducing our 'SpaceWire Validation Service' and 'SpaceWire IP'. (html version of product update) (email 4Links)

Many of you know how pervasive SpaceWire has become in the space industry, and that it (or the earlier IEEE 1355 version) is flying on several missions already. It is still a major milestone to see SpaceWire acknowledged in a press release from NASA. The benefits for missions that NASA attribute to SpaceWire can be summarized as lower cost, less development time and better performance, and the release said: “To understand the benefit of SpaceWire, you can compare the speed of a dial-up modem to a high-speed broadband Internet connection”. (link to NASA release)

Last year, 2007, saw the first SpaceWire papers published in Acta Astronautica, with two papers from 4Links that had been presented at the Annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC), at which 4Links has now exhibited for six consecutive years. Our conference and published papers tend to offer a response to questions that have been raised about SpaceWire, offering ways to use SpaceWire to provide a solution or improvements to SpaceWire that would meet the concern. We published several in 2007, covering a wide range of topics. (links to papers we gave in 2007)

We will continue to offer imaginative and useful solutions at a number of conferences and exhibitions again in 2008. Perhaps the key events will be the IAC in Glasgow at the end of September and the second International SpaceWire Conference in Osaka a few weeks later, but we'll be at others before then and will be delighted to see you. (email details)

We will also be delighted to welcome you to our new offices. We're still at Bletchley Park, but the entrance to Bletchley Park has moved and we have moved out of the Mansion into 'E' block (please note our new address at the foot of this newsletter). From 1943, most of the American officers at Bletchley Park operated from 'E' block . When you visit, we would be happy to point out some of the fascinating history (including a rebuild of the Colossus computer) that is here. (Ask to visit)

We will produce future issues of this newsletter, with news about SpaceWire and 4Links, three or four times a year. Please forward this to any of your colleagues who might be interested in SpaceWire and if you did receive this from a colleague and want future issues, please email us “Yes please”. If you don't want to receive them, please reply to this newsletter with “No thank you”. If you have news you would like to share with the SpaceWire community, send it to Dick Selwood, our editor.

4Links products are available in North America from Aeroflex Colorado Springs, in Japan from Prominent Network, and worldwide from 4Links.

All of us at 4Links wish you a happy and successful 2008.

4Links Limited, Registered in England, Company number 3938960.
Suite E U 2, Bletchley Park, Sherwood Drive, Milton Keynes, MK3 6EB, United Kingdom.
news@4Links.co.uk www.4Links.co.uk T:  +44 1908 642001, F: +44 1908 363463

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