SpaceWire standard and improved wormhole router design

Fast growth in information technology extends the means of data transfer. Especially in recent years, many more measures have been proposed in order to raise the data rate. SpaceWire is a serial, high-speed, bi-directional, full duplex, point-to-point data transfer protocol, which is defined by ESA (European Space Agency) in 2003. Wormhole routing adopted by SpaceWire reduces router buffer and makes SpaceWire routers suited to be designed as AISCs. However, blocking problem adhered to wormhole routing limits the network throughput seriously. This paper starts with an introduction to the SpaceWire standard. From the angle of ASIC design, the author deeply analyzes what SpaceWire does to improve router´s performance in three aspects. After that, a VLSI design of Spacewire router compliant with the Spacewire standard is presented, and simulation result of this router is provided.