FireTrac® is a powerful product line designed to complement DapTechnology’s successful FireSpy® and FireAdapter product lines. It clearly is the next generation AS5643 data processing, simulation and testing solution.
DapTechnology has seen an increasing demand for more streamlined hardware systems for the processing of AS5643 (and generic 1394) data streams. Customers get more and more involved in monitoring the actual data content rather than the 1394 layer. And for simulation purposes they require advanced error insertion capabilities that can only be accomplished with non-off-the-shelf Link Layer implementations. IRIG time-stamping of monitored events on the bus is a typical requirement.
FireTrac®provides a winning solution for this market need. It is designed to natively (not just as an add-on protocol) support AS5643. Besides the standard IEEE1394 features, FireTrac® has been architected to provide hardware level support for SAE AS5643 which reduces host processor burden, specifically for packet encapsulation, data extraction, receive/transmit STOF offsets, etc. As a key example, FireTrac® handles AS5643 transmission timing entirely in hardware therefore making it a lot more accurate. It is important to understand that FireTrac® is a dedicated and optimized solution for the processing of AS5643 type traffic. Support for this protocol is embedded in the hardware and not just in a software layer (as typically provided with other solutions that rely on COTS OHCI chipsets).
In order to get the best out of the unique feature set of the FireTrac®card DapTechnology the interface platform is supported by FireStack®, i.e. DapTechnology's home grown software stack. FireStack optimally supports the hardware and firmware layers embedded into FireTrac. As FireTrac’s® host interface uses FireLink Extended (and not a standard OHCI Link Layer chip) functionality that has been tailored and optimized for the support of the AS5643 standard brings the combination of FireTrac® and FireStack® to an entirely new level.
Active |
Initial Release/Shipping: Sep. 2020 |
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FireTrac4x24bT | Initial Release/Shipping: Aug. 2019 | |
FireTrac3460bT V3 | Initial Release/Shipping: Dec. 2008 | |
EULA/EOSA EOS |
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- |
EOL & EOM |
FireTrac3460bT V1/V2 |
Obsolete |
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FireTrac® provides a very universal approach to dealing with AS5643 type of traffic. It is uniquely suited for SAE AS5643 level Data
Extraction and Analysis (RX) but also Data Generation and Device Simulation (TX).
With the FireTrac® platform DapTechnology has enabled dedicated implementations needed in the A&D environment. Such application-centric solutions are focused on very specific tasks and, due to their very clearly defined requirements, DapTechnology is able to even further optimize the firmware and software architecture.
Examples for such “customized” solutions are:
FireTrac® uses a combination of 1394 and AS5643 support in hardware, as well as a robust, well-designed 1394 software stack (FireStack®) running on a host computer. Interfacing to this stack can be done via an API that offers C/C++ interfaces on multiple platforms and a LabVIEW interface on Windows. Currently, DapTechnology supports Windows, VxWorks, Linux, QNX, IRIX and LabVIEW(RT) platforms.
An essential feature of FireTrac® is its adaptable software and firmware layers. In order to be usable in embedded designs having limited resources, great emphasis was given to keep the footprint and host system resource utilization fairly small. And, in order to optimize and streamline performance, the individual features and functions of FireTrac® are grouped into so-called Personality Profiles. These profiles may be purchased separately so that the user may configure their system based on individual requirements.
The Personality Profiles allow the solution to be adapted for use in embedded systems which typically have limited resources, and/or with powerful host processors that can utilize even the fully featured profile.
The following profiles are available:
All products within the FireTrac® family use multiple instantiations (one per bus) of DapTechnology's FireLink® Extended IP Core. FireLink® Extended features OHCI compliant DMA engines as well as firmware level support for the AS5643 (Mil1394) protocol. The AS5643 module is designed to offload the AS5643 support from the host processor. The following features are supported in firmware:
Compared with other implementations using off-the-shelf 1394 LLC silicon (and AS5643 support implemented in SW) FireTrac®'s usage of this AS5643 extension to the extended version of FireLink drastically improves the overall system performance, offloads the host processor and guarantees timing deadlines that otherwise can only be accomplished with real-time operating systems.
Product |
PHY and number of buses | Link Layer | Connectivity (per bus) |
Host Interface |
FireTrac 3x24bT |
FT3424bT: 3x TSB41BA3 (or newer) FT3824bT: 3x TSB81BA3 (or newer) |
3x FireLink Extended IP Core Extended OHCI Mil1394 Module |
3x Transformer-Coupled Ports SFF-8614 (interleaved) S200b-S400b / S400b-S800b Optionally an S100b-S200b version is available |
PCI Express 2.0 |
FireTrac 4x24bT |
FT4424bT: 4x TSB41BA3 (or newer) FT4824bT: 4x TSB81BA3 (or newer) |
4x FireLink Extended IP Core Extended OHCI Mil1394 Module |
4x Transformer-Coupled Ports SFF-8614 (interleaved) S200b-S400b / S400b-S800b Optionally an S100b-S200b version is available |
PCI Express 2.0 |
3x TSB41BA3 |
3x FireLink Extended IP Core Extended OHCI Mil1394 Module |
3x Transformer-Coupled Ports High-Density Connector S200b and S400b Optionally an S100b-S200b version is available |
PMC Form factor PCI-X 2.0a and PCI 3.0 Carrier Cards available for PCIe, PCI, cPCI, PXIe, ... |