An Efficient Multi-Lane SpaceFibre Core for Spacecraft Data-Handling Networks

Abstract

As one of the key technologies in spacecraft data-handling networks mounting high-resolution payloads, the multi-lane native SpaceFibre standard is designed to meet the demands for the high-speed and reliable interconnections between satellite payloads. A few studies are about the implementations of a multi-lane SpaceFibre core. Even though they exhibit good performance, several limitations still, more or less, exist. We detail an efficient multi-lane SpaceFibre (E-ML-SpFi) core for high-rate and fault-tolerant data communication. The E-ML-SpFi core exploits a hierarchical method to decouple the complex control logic of the retransmission mechanism. The core employs a modified word re-ordering block to map an extended set of words on a real-time variable number of data-sending lanes. Meanwhile, the core introduces the architecture of a fast alignment subsystem to accelerate the alignment process. A hardware implementation on XC7Z100 FPGA shows that the E-ML-SpFi core has complete functionality stipulated by the standard and requires limited resources, with 6290 (2.26%) LUTs and 8252 (1.49%) FFs. The maximum operating frequency of the core is 200 MHz. Moreover, the recovery time is reduced up to 30.9% compared with previous work. Therefore, the core provides a valid solution for future interconnection networks onboard spacecraft.