"Boundary scan testing is one
of the first tests we do when we get the assembled boards
from the PCB house," said Murali Mukkamala, manufacturing
test engineer for NeoScale. "During the early phases
of prototype development, we did not have this test
program in place and we had to find failures the hard
way."
 NeoScale's
storage appliances provide robust data protection for
networked and distributed storage. Specifically, CryptoStor
FC is the industry’s first enterprise-class storage
security appliance with true wire-speed encryption,
centralized policy management, firewall access control
and completely transparent operation for strong storage
transport and media privacy. The CryptoStor FC is comprised
of two cards, a motherboard and daughter card, that
are densely populated with many ball grid arrays (BGAs)
and components in fine-pitch packages with little or
no physical access to the pins. Both boards are tested
by the ScanWorks JTAG system.
Cost is another constant concern for
startups. To keep test costs low, Mukkamala has put
together a manufacturing test suite that uses ScanWorks'
boundary scan capabilities, a flying probe test station
and optical inspection.
"We don't have the volume of boards
in production yet to justify the cost of in-circuit
test fixtures," Mukkamala said. "But with
the three methods we've been using, we've found that
we can get very high yields. Eventually, we will ask
our contract manufacturer to take over much of our manufacturing
test, including the ScanWorks boundary scan tests."
As a startup, NeoScale can't afford
to scrap many bad printed circuit boards. But, at the
same time, it can't afford for its technicians and engineers
to spend a lot of time debugging and diagnosing problems
on its prototype or production boards. The ScanWorks
JTAG system helps on both counts.
“One of the biggest benefits
of ScanWorks is that it shortens the board debug time.
Our company is entering a critical period as many of
our prototype boards ramp up to volume production, but
we believe we are in good shape because we have a solid
manufacturing test process in place," Mukkamala
explained."
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