Connect - ASSET InterTech

Our recent Best In Test award (See related article.) is certainly a great honor for ASSET, the technology we’re developing and the people here who have made it happen. The recognition, the industry plaudits, the kudos – whatever you want to call them – are great, but what excites us most about this prestigious award is that it validates our strategy of formulating long-term partnerships with our customers and allowing these relationships to drive our innovation.

Our approach has been pretty simple. We work in close partnership with customers who in many instances become teacher/customers, if you

will, as well as other vendors to anticipate the needs of our marketplace and then deliver capabilities before anyone else. DFT Analyzer provides a good example of this.

DFT Analyzer came out of simultaneous thought processes inside ASSET and at several of our customers. We were all pondering the challenge of how an organization could get DFT right the first time and, as a result, derive the greatest benefit from it. A great deal of credit should go to Rockwell for championing this concept, but other customers also made significant contributions, including Breconridge, Solectron, Cisco, Ericsson and Motorola.

In 2005, we won a Best-In-Test for System and Board Test for ScanWorks for High-Speed Buses. We had anticipated problems in this area because we could see that bus speeds were increasing so rapidly and physical access was disappearing. We believed that these two factors would make both structural testing and design validation of high-speed buses very difficult, if not impossible. Unfortunately, the only solution involved embedding new test mechanisms into chips themselves and this was beyond our control.

Nevertheless, we became involved with several customers in two distinct efforts that addressed this situation. Cisco was the champion behind the development of the IEEE 1149.6 standard for testing high-speed AC-coupled buses. ASSET contributed significantly while the standard was being defined and we were the first to market with tools to support it. The other effort came about as a result of our relationship with Intel. Intel was developing an embedded technology for design validation known as Intel Interconnect BIST (IBIST). We were the only company that worked alongside Intel to develop a revolutionary set of tools to support Intel IBIST.

As I explained, in some cases we work collaboratively with one or several customers to develop a solution like DFT Analyzer or our 2004 Best-In-Test award, TopCAT™ technology for automated cluster testing. In other cases, such as 1149.6 or Intel IBIST, the problem may be more complex and require an industry initiative to deliver the right solution. We, working with our customers and other interested parties in the industry, provide our own vision of the technology in question and we bring our leadership skills to bear in developing solutions. You can see why it is so critical for our long-term strategies to nurture deep-seated relationships with our customers to the point where we have an intimate understanding of their business and technology challenges. Out of this web of relationships we are able to deliver cost-effective solutions that benefit all of our customers.

We have always dedicated our company to enhancing boundary scan-based technology, making it easier to use, and adding to the sophistication of the tools and capabilities that our users have at their disposal. By focusing on these objectives, we knew that we would achieve our goal of leading the boundary scan industry. Three consecutive Best In Test awards suggest we’ve taken the right track.

Roadmap in the Rear View Mirror

Looking back at 2005 I see several milestones that are notable not just for ASSET, but also for the boundary-scan industry.

For example, a couple of our technical experts gave a boost to system-level JTAG by volunteering to serve on the MicroTCA standards-setting body. In the process, ASSET became the first boundary-scan company to join the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG). At the other end of the spectrum, we teamed up with Agilent Technologies to offer a free service that makes it easier to correctly implement boundary scan at the chip level. This new BSDL (Boundary Scan Description Language) Validation Service (www.asset-intertech.com/bsdl_service) checks the accuracy of a chip’s BSDL file before first samples of the device are fabricated. Once samples are produced, for a nominal fee our BSDL Silicon Validation service checks the BSDL file against working silicon.

Other major milestones on our roadmap for 2005 show that we are widening and deepening the application of boundary scan technology in the test industry. Our announcement that Microsoft has chosen ScanWorks as the boundary scan test platform for its next-generation of Xbox, the Xbox 360, marks the first announcement that boundary scan is being applied in a mass-market consumer electronics platform. Moreover, earlier in the year, Agilent Technologies announced that ScanWorks would be integrated seamlessly into its new in-circuit test (ICT) platforms, the Medalist i5000 Series. ScanWorks now plays the role of premier JTAG bundled solution for all of the Medalist ICT product line, which includes the i5000 and 3070 Series systems.

Besides these major announcements, we’ve stuck to our roadmap of software releases by issuing two new versions of ScanWorks during 2005. These releases have included many enhancements like the USB-100 controller, support for Intel IBIST testing, Self Service Licensing, NAND Flash programming and the ability to export ScanWorks tests as STAPL programs.

Rippling Outward from the Center

Several of ASSET’s milestones over the last year are indicative of a trend we will see unfolding in the boundary-scan industry in the years ahead. I’m referring to a widening of the scope of JTAG. For the last 10 years or so, boundary scan has been solidly centered on board test and in-system programming. Now, we see ripples reaching out from this center and extending boundary-scan technology upward to multi-board applications at the system-level (SJTAG) and downward to the chip-level where new access techniques are being defined in a standard called Internal JTAG (IJTAG). For more information on SJTAG and IJTAG, click here for a related article in this issue of Connect on the ASSET User Group meeting. In addition, click here for a report from the chairman of the IJTAG working group on the progress this group has made.

You can be assured that SJTAG and IJTAG are on ASSET’s roadmap for the future.

Enlivening Our Roadmap

Product and strategic technology roadmaps are certainly documents that are essential to a leadership company. But what makes them come to life, if you will, is where they come from. In our case, they start with you, our users and customers. During a recent interview with the editor of Test and Measurement World magazine, I was asked what makes ASSET unique. My immediate response was that our relationships that set us apart. Our roadmaps and the direction the company takes flow out of these relationships. (If you missed the T&MW interview, click here for part 1 or click here for part 2 of the article.)

My comments to T&MW were based largely on the many conversations I have had with users. By and large, you usually have good things to say about us. Periodically, we take a more scientific approach and formally ask your opinion. I’m very pleased to say that our recent User Satisfaction Survey showed that our relationships with our users seem to be working pretty well. In fact, when we asked users how we were doing with regards to technical support, 90.2 percent of the respondents said we were doing a good or excellent job. If our support services are any indication – and I think they’re a pretty good one – it looks as though we’re building good relationships with our users. (For an article on our User Satisfaction Survey in this issue of Connect, click here.

By the way, if you’re interested in reviewing ASSET’s product and technology roadmaps, contact your sales person or drop us an email at connect@asset-intertech.com. We’d be happy to share them with you.