AITECH’S NEW RUGGED, LOW POWER 6U VMEBUS BOARD
PROVIDES MULTIPLE ANALOG AND DIGITAL I/O CAPABILITIES

Chatsworth, CA, February 2006 -- Aitech Defense Systems, Inc., a world leader in the development and manufacture of board and subsystem level products for harsh environment defense, aerospace and space applications, now offers a rugged, low power 6U VMEbus board that provides multiple I/O capabilities, including ARINC-429, analog-to-digital, digital-to-analog, audio and discretes. The extensive I/O capabilities of the new single-slot C437 make the board ideal for system integrators requiring I/O for a large number of sensors and actuators, as found in several general purpose airborne applications, such as manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as well as helicopter platforms.

Each of the C437’s analog, digital, and discrete I/O sections has independent power and ground domains, where each signal is fully isolated from one another to maintain signal integrity and to minimize cross-coupled noise. This enables high fidelity, low noise floor analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversions, while minimizing digital crosstalk and interference. I/O components of the new board include 24 AEEC-compliant ARINC-429 channels that support both high and low speed configurations (16 receive and eight transmit), 60 single-ended discrete inputs, 2 differential inputs and 41 single-ended discrete outputs, in addition to four opto-isolated, -10V to +10V, 16-bit differential analog inputs and four -10V to +10V differential analog outputs.

An MP3 player with stereo audio output, coupled with dedicated Flash and SRAM memory, enables the board to store and playback pre-recorded audio messages. The new C437 can decode and play various formats including MP3+V, WAV, PCM and MPEG 1 & 2 audio layer 3 files, as well as run-time messages.

The C437 features a VMEbus bridge, implemented in an FPGA logic device, that provides slave VMEbus capabilities and supports A32/D08/D16/D32 data transfers to and from any standard host board. The FPGA logic device also provides full autonomous control over all onboard functions, freeing up the host to perform other tasks.

Drawing a low 14W of power, the C437 easily integrates into systems with moderately sized power supplies. The board is fully compliant with IEEE1101.2, and is available in both conduction- and air-cooled models. The metal thermal frame provides exceptional vibration and shock resistance as well as added heat paths to reduce thermal impedance thus increasing the board’s in-service reliability.

The board comes with built-in tests (BIT) for all onboard resources and a complete set of integrated RTOS drivers, including VxWorks and Integrity, that provide full control/status and access to all I/O modules on the C437 from the VMEbus host card. Drivers for other popular real-time operating systems can be supplied upon request.