Connect - ASSET InterTech

When we formed our strategic relationship with International Test Technologies (ITT) three years ago, we did so for a reason. Actually, for many good reasons. Now that our two companies have worked closely together for an extended period of time, we have a better understanding of just how strategic this relationship has become for ASSET as a company and for our test technologies. What we've done so far – seamlessly converge structural and functional processor-based emulation testing – is just scratching the surface of what we have planned for the future.

TEST DATA OUT

BGAs are a tough nut to crack (and diagnose)
by Arden Bjerkeli
Director of Customer Applications Support
ASSET InterTech, Inc.

The cycle keeps repeating itself until the test engineer is left with few alternatives. It goes like this: Competitive pressures in the marketplace require adding more functionality and snazzier features to circuit boards. That could mean more or bigger chips to support the new functionality. It also could mean eliminating test pads and turning to space-saving component packages like ball grid arrays (BGA). In the end, the board has few if any test pads and lots of BGAs that defy test probes since the soldered interconnects are underneath the silicon die. What’s a test engineer to do?

INSIDE ASSET

Agilent and ASSET extend strategic collaboration

ASSET and Agilent Technologies have agreed to extend their mutually beneficial strategic collaboration agreement. Renewal of the long-standing contract indicates the level of confidence the two companies have for one another. It also ensures that ScanWorks will remain the best-in-class JTAG solution on Agilent's in-circuit test (ICT) systems.

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Nortel jumps on the hosted license server bandwagon

Nortel Having the right software licenses in the right place and at the right time can sometimes be a challenge for system suppliers who have a global or even a regional network of contract manufacturers churning out their products. Now though, any challenge of this sort involving ScanWorks licenses has been eliminated and worldwide agility ensured with a new hosted ScanWorks license server. Nortel Networks is one of the first to take advantage of this new service.

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ITC will keep ASSET people hopping

ITC Logo Aside from what will be going on in the ASSET booth at next week's Test Week, or, as it is more formally known, the International Test Conference, ASSET personnel will be involved in a number of papers and presentations at the show.

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PICMG's® ATCA® considers boundary scan

For some time now the AdvancedTCA® (ATCA) working group of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) has considered adding boundary scan as an option to the ATCA specification, just as the working group for PICMG's MicroTCA specification did last year. In fact, the ATCA group has invited input from the ad hoc System JTAG (SJTAG) working group, which has been discussing how to standardize system-level implementations of boundary scan.

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New JTAG switching device targets PICMG® systems

Maxim Logo A new device from Maxim Integrated Products is particularly well suited to system-level boundary-scan applications. The chip switches and multiplexes JTAG signals among three master ports and as many as 20 secondary ports. The DS26900 is being targeted for systems conforming to MicroTCA™, ATCA® and other specifications of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG).

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Speed is of the essence. And diagnostic tools!

A recent survey of ScanWorks users showed that the speed of manufacturing test is a huge concern. It's probably not too surprising that more than 90 percent of those who responded to the survey said they wanted to speed up manufacturing test. Perhaps more interesting, almost as many respondents said their diagnostic tools for functional test are sorely lacking.

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