NEXT GENERATION FUNCTIONAL COMPONENTS FOR SPACE TELEMETRY DATA PROCESSING

Abstract

Space telemetry data processing elements for flight and ground systems are currently developed using discrete components on a project-by-project basis. The adoption of various standards, such as those recommended by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), brings commonality of requirements across future NASA communications elements and affords the opportunity to create standard components to meet these requirements. Over the past five years, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has developed a series of high performance Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) components for space data systems. These standard components have enabled the development of high performance data systems that are an order of magnitude more compact and cost effective than systems of the previous generation. Recent advances in design automation tools and integrated circuit densities have yielded the means to achieve yet another leap in the integration levels, performance and cost reduction of space data systems. Design automation tools can generate complex integrated circuit designs from high level technology independent functional descriptions. A single reusable functional description can be targeted to a variety of circuit technologies including CMOS, ECL and GaAs. With available densities of over 1 million integrated transistors in both CMOS and GaAs technologies, standard components integrating multiple processing elements are realizable for both flight and ground projects. This paper describes the ongoing efforts of the Microelectronics Systems Branch at GSFC to create highly integrated components to meet functions outlined by the CCSDS using design automation techniques.