 Discovering
ease-of-use
with a new Assistant
by Dave Bonnett
Technical Product Manager
Let's face it. Boundary scan can be
somewhat daunting for first time and occasional users.
Questions abound, such as: "Where do I start?"
and "How do I finish?" And in between are
several other perplexing and sometimes time-consuming
issues.
Two new features of ScanWorks®
-- ScanWorks Assistant and Scan Path Discovery -- will
certainly help alleviate this situation. New users who
are completely unfamiliar with boundary scan and occasional
users who don't develop tests often enough to become
experts will generate tests or programming operations
much sooner and become more productive faster.
ScanWorks Assistant
Thanks to ScanWorks Assistant, first
time and occasional users will find that getting started
with ScanWorks is very straightforward. ScanWorks Assistant
leads users through all of the basic steps of ScanWorks,
including setting up the software and hardware for the
first time, describing for ScanWorks the board to be
tested, generating rudimentary scan path verification
and interconnect tests, and creating a test sequence
which is composed of the various test actions for a
particular circuit board or assembly.
ScanWorks Assistant describes the purpose
of each step and links to the dialog boxes where specific
instructions are displayed. Each step's rationale and
the instructions for executing that step not only help
new users generate their  project
quickly, but this information also trains the uninitiated
user so the entire process is accelerated on the next
design. Once the basics of ScanWorks are learned, ScanWorks
Assistant can be turned off and the full power of the
ScanWorks interface is placed at the user's fingertips.
Occasional users will find ScanWorks
Assistant ideal for becoming familiar with ScanWorks
again after not using it for some time. The set-up information
and routines can be bypassed and the user can begin
by opening an existing project/design or by creating
a new project/design.
Even for fulltime ScanWorks users,
ScanWorks Assistant often is a simpler way to create
a new design description because it offers easier access
to the instructions contained in dialog boxes. ScanWorks
Assistant also automatically creates Scan Path Verify
and Interconnect test actions, saving the time users
previously spent creating these. After completing a
design description and basic tests, experienced users
may open the full ScanWorks interface to optimize any
test actions or create additional tests.
One of the most valuable features of
ScanWorks Assistant for new ASSET customers and those
who are on maintenance contracts is the fact that it
is free because it is not a new version of the software.
ScanWorks Assistant is simply a new user interface that
provides easier access to the same underlying software
and dialog information that's been available through
the full ScanWorks user interface. Users can move seamlessly
between ScanWorks Assistant and the full user interface
at any time with no extra steps and without losing any
work that was done in one or the other interface.
Scan Path Discovery
Before any tests can be executed, any
boundary scan test system such as ScanWorks must have
an accurate description of the scan path that will form
the basis for the tests. Unfortunately, creating an
accurate scan path description frequently involves significant
manual effort and often is very time consuming. Engineers
usually must manually trace the boundary scan Test Data
In (TDI) signals through the design to the Test Data
Out (TDO) signal, while noting on paper the devices
on the scan path. Adding to the complexity, schematics
of more than 100 pages are common and sometimes the
information that's needed to follow signals from one
page to the next is not provided. The whole process
can take hours to simply identify the devices on the
scan path.
 Scan
Path Discovery finds all the boundary-scan devices on
the scan path by automatically analyzing the design's
net list to identify all devices connected to boundary
scan's test clock (TCK) and test mode (TMS) signals.
Then Scan Path Discovery checks local libraries to find
any matching Boundary-Scan Description Language (BSDL)
files for the devices. If a BSDL file is not present
for a certain device, Scan Path Discovery asks the user
to provide the file.
By examining the BSDL file, Scan Path
Discovery identifies the TDI and TDO pins for each device
and then the order of the devices on the scan path can
be determined by tracing the TDO-to-TDI connections
between the devices on the path. If any obstacle such
as an un-modeled buffer, switch or jumper is encountered,
Scan Path Discovery stops and asks the user for help.
When the discovery process is complete, a block diagram
of the scan path is displayed and a Scan Path Verification
action is created automatically.
Continually Adding Value to
ScanWorks
ScanWorks Assistant and Scan Path Discovery
are just two examples of ASSET's on-going commitment
to continually add value to the ScanWorks environment.
With these two new standard features, which will be
available during the second quarter of 2004 when ScanWorks
3.4 is released, users can forgo many of the preliminary
steps and move directly to those steps in the process
where individual expertise and know-how are needed to
optimize the test coverage or the programming efficiencies.
But perhaps the biggest benefit for maintenance customers
is the fact that ScanWorks Assistant and Scan Path Discovery
are integral to every ScanWorks development station
and are provided at no cost to maintenance users.
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