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Board Bring-Up

Accelerate the prototype cycle

Validate your new design

Debug tools for each phase

Get to manufacturing on time

Despite a board design team’s best efforts, projects often hit a snag when first prototypes arrive. Chances are good they won’t work exactly the way they should. Maybe they won’t power up. Or it could be faulty hardware or buggy software. The ScanWorks platform for embedded instruments has tools for each of the iterative phases of the board bring-up process. Ultimately, your design will be delivered to manufacturing on schedule.

Too often during the board bring-up process, designers are left to wonder: is the problem hardware or software? The ScanWorks platform can validate, test and debug hardware independently of any operating software. Then, firmware and software debug tools let you track down bugs. You have one environment with multiple tools so you can methodically prepare your designs for volume manufacturing.

Whitepapers:
Blog:
  "What is Board Bring-Up, and why does it take so long?"

Test your prototypes

Several of the ScanWorks non-intrusive board test (NBT) technologies can be effectively integrated into an efficient board bring-up strategy. For example, boundary scan test (BST) could be used on a non-booting board for net- and pin-level diagnostics. And you won’t have to pay for an expensive bed-of-nails fixture. After testing for shorts and opens, you’ll want to check out the board’s at-speed functionality. Here’s where ScanWorks processor-controlled test (PCT) comes in. Applying commands from the board’s processor, it tests the structural and functional integrity of the devices and buses on the board. 
 
For more information on the ScanWorks Boundary-Scan Test tools, click here. 
 
For more information on the ScanWorks Processor-Controlled Test tools, click here.

Validate your boards

Maybe you suspect signal integrity issues on a prototype’s high-speed serial and memory buses. You know how narrow the tolerances are. The problem may be you don’t have probe access to the buses. Test pads are disappearing because they corrupt the signaling. With the ScanWorks high-speed I/O (HSIO) validation tools you don’t need probes at all. Drawing on instruments embedded in chips and boards, the performance of a bus is validated from the inside. You see what the receivers in the silicon are seeing.
 
For more information on the ScanWorks HSIO product, click here.

One environment, multiple tools

Faults can be found just about anywhere on a prototype circuit board. What you need to eliminate all the possibilities is a cohesive platform environment with multiple tools so you can iteratively target potential problem areas. Starting with assembly issues, you’ll next be able to test hardware on the board and then move on to firmware and software debug. All in one environment so you can correlate test results to determine the real root causes.
 

CPU & FPGA Support

ScanWorks supports Intel®, ARM®, Freescale™,
& other CPUs; Altera®, Xilinx® and Lattice® FPGAs.

See the full range