Acromag AcroPack AP513 serial communication module

Acromag’s AP513 serial communication module, an AcroPack rugged I/O module based on the PCI Express mini card (mPCIe) standard, provides four individually isolated RS232 serial ports on a compact 30 x 70 mm board. Each port is isolated to 250 V from digital circuitry and 100 V from the other three ports. The isolation protects equipment and signal integrity in electrically noisy environments with potential for high common model voltages, harmful transient signals and ground loops.

Designed for COTS applications, the mPCIe mezzanine modules deliver a SWaP-optimised solution for military, aerospace and industrial systems, performing functions including data collection, control, testing and simulations. A variety of carrier cards are available to host a mix of up to four AcroPack I/O modules on PCI Express, VPX, CompactPCI-Serial or other small form factor computer platforms.

A number of features are available to help simplify configuration and improve performance. Software configuration helps users quickly set baud rates, character sizes, stop bits and parity. For efficient data processing, each serial port is equipped with 256 B FIFO buffers on the transmit and receive lines; consequently, CPU interaction is minimised. Programmable triggers, extensive handshake support, interrupt controls and a 16550-compatible UART provide additional flexibility.

Carrier cards for rack-mount, field-deployable, industrial chassis, desktop and small mezzanine computing platforms let users combine up to four I/O function modules on one computer board. Software tools support embedded applications running on Linux, Windows or VxWorks operating systems.