24-Channel ARINC 429 Development Kit

Thursday, February 01, 2018

 Mission Viejo, CA (January 16, 2018) – Holt Integrated Circuits today announced the release of a new ARINC 429 application development kit, featuring 16 ARINC 429 receive channels and 8 ARINC 429 transmit channels. The data management engine is comprised of Holt’s recently announced HI-3220 IC, which integrates all 24 channels in a tiny 10mm x 10mm footprint.  

The kit hardware includes a CPU control board with ARM Cortex M3 16/32-bit microprocessor, debug interface and regulated 3.3VDC power supply, and a HI-3220 daughter card, configurable with various DIP switches. The HI-3220 board can be detached from the ARM MCU board for connection to a user-supplied alternate microprocessor or FPGA board. All host interface signals are available through the inter-board headers for compatibility with generic prototyping boards. 

 The two-board assembly comes complete with sample demonstration code pre-programmed in the microcontroller flash and is operational right out of the box without installing or running the provided software. The included source code is easily customizable, giving the user an opportunity for further investigation or development. 

 The kit includes IAR Embedded Workbench® for ARM® evaluation software from IAR Systems®, a fully functional integrated development environment including project management tools, optimizing C/C++ compiler and debug interface for all ARM and Cortex A/R/M variants. The ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller board includes a “J-Link On Board” debug interface, providing easy connectivity to the IAR Systems tools via a standard USB cable provided with the kit.

 “These kits provide a convenient reference design for multi-channel ARINC 429 applications such as data concentrators,” said George Noh, Director of Sales and Marketing at Holt. “The included software and source code may be easily ported to other microprocessors as the basis for new designs.”

 The HI-3220 IC family is capable of managing, storing and forwarding avionics data between 16 ARINC 429 receive channels and 8 ARINC 429 transmit channels in a 10mm x 10mm footprint. All ARINC 429 channels may operate independently using 32kB of on-board memory; 64 and 32 message deep FIFOs are also available for each receive and transmit channel respectively. Integrated line receivers and a 4-wire 40 MHz serial peripheral host interface (SPI) save significant amounts of space at such high channel densities, making these devices ideal for multi-channel applications such as data concentrators.