System-level JTAG proof-of-concept demo
ASSET and Firecron Ltd of London recently produced a proof-of-concept demonstration on system-level JTAG (SJTAG) for attendees at the European Board Test Workshop that was held May 24-25 in Chilworth, UK. SJTAG is drawing the attention of large electronics manufacturers such as Motorola, Lucent, Ericsson and others who have joined the SJTAG industry initiative.
 “We have been working with Firecron and the SJTAG group for quite some time on open standards,” said Alan Sguigna, vice president of sales and marketing for ASSET. “System-level JTAG is becoming much more important to OEMs seeking higher degrees of fault tolerance and reliability within their systems, and vendor-independent implementations are key to opening this market.”
The SJTAG group began a year ago with a stated goal of standardizing the processes, methodologies, data contents and formats that are involved in the deployment of SJTAG applications. The ad hoc group is chaired by Dr. Ben Bennetts.
ASSET’s and Firecron’s proof-of-concept SJTAG system incorporated many of the design principles defined by the SJTAG working group and the system is seen by the group as the first step towards an open-standard, non-proprietary implementation of SJTAG test and programming.
The SJTAG demonstration system consisted of an ASSET ScanWorks boundary-scan system interacting with a Firecron embedded controller. Test vectors generated by ScanWorks were dynamically downloaded over a LAN/WAN Ethernet connection into the system which was equipped with an embedded boundary-scan controller from Firecron. The vectors were executed on the system and diagnostic data was sent back to the remote ScanWorks station for fault isolation and display.
“By adopting SJTAG in their designs OEMs are able to save time and money, and they’ll reduce the No Fault Found (NFF) issue in the field,” said Eugene Mullen, vice president at Firecron. “Firecron is committed to this technology.”
Firecron Ltd designs and develops JTAG infrastructure products, providing design-for-test (DFT) solutions for communications, military and industrial systems. Over the last five years, Firecron has consistently developed world class products in its gateway, controller and sequencer products. Founded in 2001, Firecron is headquartered in London and it has design centers around the UK. For Firecron product information, call +44 (0) 1372 477127, direct e-mail to sales@firecron.com or click here to visit the company’s website.
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