ASSET InterTech provides unique tools for accessing embedded instrumentation: Boundary Scan, CPU Emulation, Intel® IBIST.
Relying on documentation to learn how to use a technical software product is not recommended for the faint of heart. Much to his chagrin, that's exactly what Jeff Thomson, a contractor to a large aerospace company, faced. Thomson's expertise is in the graphical test executives from National Instruments, LabVIEW and TestStand. His assignment was to automate the application of ScanWorks boundary-scan tests under these NI test executives.
"I wasn't familiar with ScanWorks at all before I started on this work,"Thomson explained. "Everyone else at the company I was working for had been trained on ScanWorks, but I had no training at all and I was being asked to integrate these tests under LabVIEW and TestStand. I had to ramp myself up on ScanWorks very quickly."
Fortunately for Thomson, the online documentation associated with ScanWorks provided him with all the guidance and information he needed.
"I found ScanWorks very well documented,"he said. "And the user interface is one of the best I've seen. For a programmer, I thought that the methodology inherent in ScanWorks of projects which incorporate designs, and test sequences which are made up of test actions was very useful. That kind of structured environment is easy for a programmer to work with and it helped me get up to speed quickly."
Thomson was working on a contract with an aerospace company developing jet engine control systems for commercial airliners. The control systems were made up of several circuit boards featuring very high-density, high-speed components. The control system's circuit boards had been designed with boundary scan testing in mind, so they included JTAG access to most of the components.
Based solely on ScanWorks' online documentation, Thomson learned how to automate the application of ScanWorks test sequences under LabVIEW and TestStand. These test sequences were deployed on the production line to perform component programming, production test and diagnostics on circuit boards as they were produced. In addition, the ScanWorks structural tests were incorporated into certain functional test routines as well. Following production test, the circuit boards would be inserted into a card cage and placed in an environmental test chamber where they were tested again over a wide range of temperatures to determine whether extreme environmental conditions would induce failures.
NOTE: Thomson can be contacted at 19 Island Way, Southwick, MA 01077 or (413) 531-5775.
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