Integrating ScanWorks and ICT
The ease and simplicity of integrating ScanWorks with an ICT system from Agilent, Teradyne (GenRad) or any other supplier has led to a host of installations at manufacturing facilities in the US, Asia and Europe. Several integration options give manufacturers the flexibility to configure an integrated ScanWorks/ICT solution that meets their specific needs. Some of the OEMs and contract manufacturers that have already deployed integrated ScanWorks/ICT solutions include Tellabs, Hewlett-Packard, Rockwell Automation and Rockwell Collins, Microsoft, Philips Electronics, Sanmina-SCI, Solectron, Wistron, Celestica and Flextronics.
 By integrating ICT and boundary scan tests, costs are reduced significantly throughout a products lifecycle. A flexible test flow can be deployed that takes boundary-scan tests which were originally developed to debug a design and re-uses them during volume manufacturing on ICT systems. Later, these same tests can be re-deployed for functional and environmental testing, and even later to perform troubleshooting or repair after the product has been introduced into the marketplace. Moreover, the cost and complexity of ICT fixtures can be reduced and test points eliminated as boundary-scan test coverage increases. ScanWorks’ Fault Coverage Reporting actually identifies where boundary-scan test coverage can eliminate ICT test points. (For a white paper on Fault Coverage Reporting, click here.
The Externally Integrated ScanWorks solution is extremely versatile in that it can be applied to virtually any ICT system that is capable of calling an external application. In fact, this type of integration requires no operator intervention, resulting in a more efficient utilization of the manufacturers’ investment in expensive ICT equipment.
Central to an Externally Integrated ScanWorks system is an application called the remote application server, which runs on the PC that is hosting ScanWorks. A directory is set up that is shared between ScanWorks and the ICT system. Remote application server polls this directory looking for certain files that tell ScanWorks which test and programming actions and sequences should be executed on the ICT tester. After the ScanWorks operations have been applied, remote application server writes the pass/fail results for each test and the results of a programming action to a file in the shared directory. In addition, remote application server could be configured to report the names of the diagnostic files that ScanWorks produced as a result of applying its tests.
With an Externally Integrated ScanWorks configuration, manufacturers have tools to easily make ScanWorks actions and sequences transparent to the operators of ICT systems. For example, the ScanWorksAPI (application programming interface) tool includes a suite of programming calls which conforms to National Instruments’ Virtual Instruments (VI) specification. ScanWorksAPI uses these VIs to easily integrate ScanWorks tests and programming operations into test executives generated by NI’s graphical development tools such as LabView or TestStand. ScanWorksAPI also features a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) interface for integrating ScanWorks operations into test executives that were created for Windows™-based systems using tools like Agilent Technology’s VEE™, LabWindows/CVI™, Visual Basic, C++ and others.
Best-in-Class ICT Configuration
In addition to the Externally Integrated ScanWorks solution for ICT, ScanWorks is available through Agilent as a Fully Integrated ScanWorks solution on the Medalist Series of ICT systems, which includes the new i5000 platforms and the 3070 systems. The Fully Integrated Solution for Agilent’s Medalist Series is the only completely integrated JTAG solution for any ICT system. This seamless integration brings a number of benefits to users, including automatic fixture building, integrated fault coverage and trouble ticket printing, and the elimination of ground bounce instability.
ScanWorks runs on the Medalist platform’s internal PC controller and a ScanWorks’ high-throughput PCI-400 JTAG interface with four test access ports (TAPs) is integrated into the ICT system. In fact, Agilent refers to its boundary-scan solution as Medalist ScanWorks. The Fully Integrated ScanWorks solution for the Medalist Series of ICT systems is fully supported worldwide by both Agilent and ASSET.
For a news release announcing the Fully Integrated ScanWorks solution and Medalist ScanWork, click here.
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