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Fibre Channel
FDDI
Ethernet
USB
ATM SCI
10 Mbps Enet
FDDI
Utility Bus
100 Mbps Enet
MIL-STD-1553
CANbus
Fibre Channel IEEE 1394
F-22 HSDB
1 Gbps Enet ATM
USB
Serial Express
Based on the PC market support, IEEE 1394 could become the standard
peripheral bus in the desk-top computer market; however, commercial
acceptance of this technology may not ensure similar success as a military
backbone network. A limitation of IEEE 1394 is that its network is in the form
of a tree topology with limited distance (10’s of meters), which complicates
both cabling and maintenance when used as a vehicle backbone network.
Additionally, popular support for 1394 is largely restricted to the consumer
electronics market whose needs for long term reliability and support for harsh
environments do not necessarily compare with those of military system
integrators.
• Serial Express
This is a high-speed (1 Gbit/sec) serial bus based on IEEE 1394 but with
support for higher speeds and longer distances. Because it is a fairly new
technology as indicated by its position on the maturation curve it is too early
to predict it’s place in military systems.
• Universal Serial Bus (USB)
USB is a 12 Mbit/sec desktop peripheral interconnect bus intended to replace
existing interfaces such as RS-232C serial ports, the PC parallel port, MIDI
ports and the monitor port. It is an ideal complement for 1394 on a desktop
Notes:
1. ATM inherently requires a star physical and switch architecture so includes
16 port switch overhead for 8 redundant nodes.
2. ATM or Fibre Channel use dual node adapters to achieve redundancy/fault
tolerance.
3. FDDI or Fibre Channel could use a star physical arrangement with a simple
cross-bar switch to solve the inherent single point failures of a loop
architecture.
4. 1553 cable length is total linear bus length vs. point to point of others.
While its maturity brings the advantage of extended temperature range FDDI
chip sets that have been implemented, the long term availability is uncertain as
commercial interest in FDDI drops off . Additionally, while extended temperature
chips are available, they are at a premium with a costs at over $1000 per node
compared to commercial implementations at less than $150. The military has
adopted FDDI for some Naval ship board applications in benign environments
not likely to see temperature extremes, such as command and control rooms.
With its roots in telecommunications, the ATM protocol was primarily designed
for voice transmission and is a lossy protocol. For voice and video the ‘on-time,
in-order’ but non-reliable attributes of ATM were ideal. They are less suitable for
data communications which require reliable, error-free transmissions without
information loss. Although loss of a packet in a voice transmission may be
undetectable to the human ear, serious inefficiencies arise if a packet is dropped
from a data block. Enhancements to ATM protocols to support data have come
slowly and thereby have also been an impediment to desktop adoption.
Another handicap to ATM adoption as a military data bus is the lack of low-
latency switches and interfaces, and software driver overheads which further
compound network latency. Unlike the telecom world which may be able to
withstand 100 microsecond latencies, mission critical, military applications
require more responsive control.
Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel is an ANSI standard which defines a family of protocols which
provide low latency, high bandwidth connections. Unlike other networking
candidates we have considered, Fibre Channel supports both host-to-peripheral
channels and host-to-host network connections. It supports scaleable throughput
rates (133 Mbit/sec to 4 Gbit/sec) with data integrity and high reliability provided
through its 8-bit/10-bit encoding scheme. Despite the name, Fibre Channel is
implemented with multiple physical serial media, including copper coax, twisted
pair, or optical fiber. The Fibre Channel standard defines three topologies: a
fabric switch topology, point-to-point, and an Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) which
offers a high-performance low-latency network with scaleable growth. FC-AL
topology allows up to 127 ports, connected serially, or loop-fashion and offers
good electrical characteristics, meaning higher data rates. Unlike ATM, Fibre
Channel does not require a concentrator which will result in a lower cost than
ATM’s switched topology. Where guaranteed performance characteristics must
be provided, point-to-point connections can be combined with a basic loop.
The status of extended temperature range Fibre Channel chips is a mixed story.
A Fibre Channel node adapter copper implementation consists of high speed
buffer memory, a protocol chip, an 8-bit/10-bit encoder/decoder chip and
transceivers. An encoder/decoder and transceivers are available in industrial
grade. Several military contractors have developed their own protocol chips
meeting military environmental requirements. Although these may not be
appropriate implementations for the general market they do indicate that single
Fibre Channel is gaining market share in the commercial world and is supported
by all major vendors of workstations and servers including HP, Compaq, IBM
and Sun. Additionally, most major server companies are members of the Fibre
Channel Association and plan to use Fibre Channel to interconnect servers and
storage systems. It is also gaining popularity within the military and has been
adopted in avionics upgrades including AWACS Extend Sentry, B-1 Lancer
strategic bomber, and F/A-18 Hornet fighter bomber. On the Navy F-18 tactical
area moving map capability (TAMMAC) the interconnect between the program
load device (PLD) and the map generator will be Fibre Channel. On the B1-B
mission computer upgrade, Fibre Channel will be used to interconnect the
mission computers and mass storage units while on the AWACS, Fibre Channel
is being used to interconnect some 15-20 workstations to the main radar data
distribution system. Additionally, it is being evaluated to provide high speed
interconnects between complex sub-systems on the US/UK next generation
tactical Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
The Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) copper implementation offers a high
performance low latency network that has scaleable growth. It has been adopted
in the commercial arena and a Fibre Channel profile is being developed for the
avionics world.