Arinc 664 - AFDX Introduction
Excalibur Systems' ARINC-664 Part 7 / AFDX hardware gives avionics engineers and test labs a complete simulation, monitoring, and fault-injection environment for AFDX networks. Each board emulates up to two dual-redundant AFDX End Systems — with full transmit, receive, monitoring, and error injection capability — available across multiple host bus form factors for both lab and embedded deployed applications.
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What is ARINC-664 Part 7 (AFDX)?
ARINC-664 Part 7, known as AFDX (Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet), is an avionics data bus mandated by Boeing and Airbus for new civilian aircraft designs. Built on Ethernet technology, it adds determinism through Virtual Links (VLs) — each with a guaranteed Bandwidth Allocation Gap (BAG) and maximum latency. A dual-redundant A+B network architecture provides fault containment, and the switched topology isolates network faults from propagating to other systems.
AFDX is designed for safety-critical avionics applications, supporting mixed message types (Sampling, Queuing, and SAP) over a scalable, standardized network architecture.
Key Features of the M8K664 AFDX Module
The M8K664 is Excalibur's double-sized ARINC-664 Part 7 module, designed for use with the EXC-8000 family of multi-protocol carrier boards.
TRANSMIT:
• Three transmit modes: BAG Mode (hardware-timed, BAG values 1 / 2 / 4 / 8 / 16 / 32 / 64 / 128 ms), Bus List Mode, and Data Reconstructor Mode
• 16 MB DDR3 SDRAM transmit buffer per channel
RECEIVE & MONITORING:
• VL-based Monitor mode: per-VL message reconstruction, including large Queuing and SAP messages; multiple independent receive buffers per VL
• Sequential Monitor mode: full time-ordered capture of all AFDX traffic
• 32 MB DDR3 SDRAM receive buffer per channel
ERROR INJECTION:
• Sequence Number, IP Checksum, Packet Length, and Fragment Size injection for fault testing and integration validation
TIMING:
• IRIG B input (B120): 48-bit 1 µs time tag or 64-bit IRIG B time tag for time-correlated recording
HARDWARE:
• 2 AFDX dual-redundant ports; configurable as 1 full-duplex port or 2 independent ports
• 10/100 Mbps transmit and receive
• User-selectable dual redundancy per Virtual Link
• MTBF: 490,200 hours at 25°C
• Operating temperature: 0°C to +70°C standard; –40°C to +85°C extended (optional)
Software Support
The EXC-664 software package provides a C-language API (Windows DLL and Linux shared library) for complete programmatic control of transmit, receive, and monitoring operations.
Supported platforms:
• Windows 7 / 8 / 10 / 11
• Linux kernel 3.x / 4.x / 5.x
• NI LabVIEW and CVI
Carrier Board Options
The M8K664 module is available on the EXC-8000 carrier board family — allowing AFDX to be combined with MIL-STD-1553, ARINC 429, and other protocol modules in a single card, reducing slot count and cost in mixed-bus test setups.
For airborne protocol conversion between AFDX and other avionics buses, see the MACC II — a self-contained miniature airborne communications converter.
Introduction to ARINC-664 part 7 (Tutorial video)
ARINC-664 p7 - AFDX Products: