The incorporation of fibre channel and scalable coherent interface technologies in avionics systems

New and emerging combat aircraft, especially those with sophisticated surveillance and multi-spectral capabilities, acquire and need to move and process data at enormous data rates. Avionics architectures have evolved over time to adapt to these demanding data acquisition, data movement, data processing, and data storage requirements. The trend has been from dedicated, through federated, to distributed systems. Two key technologies that can support the continued movement to distributed systems are Fibre Channel (FC) and Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI). This paper will discuss and compare FC and SCI, illustrate how they may be used in a complementary manner, and provide insights into component and device sources.