The module uses eight of the 1k x 32 bit Cyclic-Data-Buffers provided on the General Purpose PCI Interface base card. Four of these are configured for reception of ARINC-429 data and the other four for transmission.

Data written to a Transmit Cyclic-Data-Buffer card is automatically transferred to the corresponding transmitter in a manner which ensures the maximum usage of the ARINC-429 data bus. That is, while data is available, ARINC-429 data is transmitted with the minimum 4-bit gap between data words. Similarly, received data can be captured at this maximum data rate and automatically transferred to the corresponding Cyclic-Data-Buffer from where it can be easily transferred over the PCI interface to the host processor.

For test purposes, the individual transmitter outputs can be looped-back on to the corresponding receive channel. When a channel is configured in this way its transmit driver outputs are disabled to prevent the test signals being received by other equipment on the ARINC-429 data bus.

PCI interrupts can be triggered immediately following reception of complete ARINC-429 data words. The interrupts are controlled and handled in a hierarchical manner so that the reception of ARINC-429 data generates a module interrupt on the mother card that generates a PCI interrupt to the host computer.