Upgrade to ARINC 818-3 with iWave: For High-bandwidth Real-time Video Transport

iWave Systems, with its continued effort to meet the market demands, launches ARINC 818-3 IP core for high-resolution real-time avionics video. The ARINC 818 core is compliant with the latest ARINC specification to satisfy the ever-expanding bandwidth and resolution requirement of any video format. ARINC 818-3 standard presents an alternative to the traditional 8b/10b encoding which could only get a maximum speed up to 10Gbps, by providing 64B/66B encoding for extreme high-speed ARINC 818 applications: 14.025 Gb/s, 21.0375 Gb/s, and 28.05 Gb/s.

As ARINC 818 continues to be the standard video bus for avionics cockpit display implementation around the world. Recently this technology has been used in cameras and sensors where critical timing and reliability are necessary. With the advance in avionics technology, there has been a significant increase in demand for higher bandwidth and flexibility because of increasing data requirements, frame rates, and higher resolution.

In 2019, the ARINC committee updated the specification to ARINC 818-3 presenting more features. Display emulation for testing, low latency guidelines, and fixing typographic errors to previous versions was new in this specification. Guidelines for using 64/66 bit encoding at speeds more than 10Gbit were the major addition to ARINC 818-3. It provided guidelines for implementers who had experience with 8B/10B encoding and who wished to migrate to higher bandwidths above the 10x ADVB data rate.

Speeds and Encoding

Table 1.0: ADVB Data rates

The fiber channel speed roadmap was used by ARINC 818-1 and ARINC 818-2. The advances in technologies increased the urge for high bandwidth requirements. To answer that, new speeds and guidelines on how to incorporate connection encoding were added to the ARINC 818-3 specification. Table 1.0 shows various specified ADVB data rates.

ARINC 818-1 and ARINC 818-2 only implemented 8B/10B encoding on the fiber/copper channels. On the other hand, ARINC 818-3 adopted fiber channel and ethernet links for 64B/66B encoding and 256B/257B encoding for very high-speed data transmission.

ARINC 818-3 Protocol based Conversion Cards

iWave also offers ARINC 818-3 protocol conversion cards for high-speed avionics video. The key features of conversion cards include

• Support for various interfaces such as
  • HDMI2.0 Input/Output for high-resolution full HD (4K) video transmission and reception
  • 12 G SDI In/Out interface via an HD BNC connector
  • QSFP+ connector for transmission and reception of ARINC 818-3 video via optical links
• These cards are available in 177mm x 147mm x 52mm form factor
• Operates at 12V DC power input
• Supports -20oC to +85 oC operating temperature
• The forced air-cooled system with custom fan-sink

Applications: Cockpit video, Sensor fusion, Simulators

Today, ARINC 818 is employed in various military and commercial aircraft systems. Although this protocol is specifically developed for high-speed avionics video systems such as cockpit displays, head-up displays, and heads-down multifunction displays, video concentrators, flight simulators, etc., now it is extensively used in sensor fusion applications where multiple sensor outputs are multiplexed onto a single high-speed link.

Since the adoption of ARINC 818 more than a decade ago, it continues to expand for real-time video applications due to its low latency, robustness, and high throughput capabilities.

iWave offers flexible licensing options of the IP core as per customer’s requests and has successfully licensed it to many of our esteemed clients around the world. iWave also offers design support, development boards, and engineering services for customization of the core.

For more information or inquiries, write to mktg@iwavesystems.com or visit our website www.iwavesystems.com