 Back to the Future
By Glenn Woppman
President and CEO
When we formed a strategic relationship with ITT in 2004, we were addressing several issues. Of course, the first that comes to mind involves you, our users.
Chief among the reasons for this relationship was the opportunity to increase test coverage. As we showed in our recent webcast with Test and Measurement World Magazine, no one test technology will provide 100 percent test coverage. That means that most test plans will involve more than one test technology so that better test coverage can be achieved. That's precisely what we did for you in our relationship with ITT.
 (If you missed our original webcast on “Maximizing Test Coverage,” click here to go to T&MW's webcast archive page.)
Of course, when we teamed up with ITT, we were very aware of how effectively boundary scan can find and diagnose structural faults. At the time, we believed that by combining ScanWorks with functional processor-based emulation testing we could deliver even better test coverage. Our converged structural/functional emulation test product, ScanWorks Extended JTAG Coverage, does just that. It also complements nicely the integration of ScanWorks with Agilent Technologies' in-circuit test (ICT) systems. Our Agilent ICT solutions cost-effectively extends test coverage in high-volume manufacturing applications while ScanWorks Extended JTAG Coverage does the same for applications involving a lower volume, but highly diverse mix of units under test (UUT).
A second reason for teaming up with ITT was our vision of a converged controller card that would be capable of applying both structural and functional tests. This has come to fruition in the PCI-200EJ controller, which can apply both boundary-scan and processor-based emulation tests with ScanWorks as the user interface.
The PCI-200EJ controller streamlines the entire test application process by combining both types of tests on one platform. By sharing the same user interface and the same physical connector to the UUT, the PCI-200EJ controller speeds up the entire test process. For example, a failed functional test can be quickly diagnosed by applying boundary-scan tests to determine whether a structural fault is present and, if it is, pinpoint its location.
 ScanWorks Extended JTAG Coverage takes advantage of the fact that many microprocessors feature JTAG ports. ITT's µMaster functional emulation system uses this JTAG port to control the processor and carry out various functional test routines. With ScanWorks Extended JTAG Coverage and the PCI-200EJ controller, boundary scan tests can locate the presence of faults on the interconnects to complex logic devices such as Ethernet controllers which may not have boundary-scan capabilities on-chip but which are linked to the system's microprocessor.
The Future Is Now
Based on our experiences with ITT and its technology over the last several years, we can now see that moving forward we are well positioned to deliver to you new realms of test capabilities.
At its most basic level, ScanWorks Extended JTAG Coverage has provided a more robust test platform. I've already noted the synergy that develops when boundary scan and functional processor emulation converge. In addition to this, significant standalone functional testing, which might not involve boundary scan at all, can be performed on the ScanWorks Extended JTAG Coverage platform. For example, emulation can perform at-speed tests through the processor. Moreover, flash memory can be programmed at a high rate of speed via emulation.
Beyond offering more robust test possibilities, ScanWorks Extended JTAG Coverage and the PCI-200EJ controller open the door to an entirely new level of embedded test functionality and instrumentation. In addition to converging boundary scan structural test and emulation functional test, the PCI-200EJ controller also supports Intel®'s Interconnect Built in Self Test (IBIST) technology. That means that the same ScanWorks system can perform structural test, functional test, and access and control IBIST's embedded test, diagnostics and instrumentation technology.
 IBIST leverages the boundary-scan IEEE 1149.1 specification as the hardware and software communication methodology for accessing and controlling its embedded on-chip capabilities. IBIST is anticipated to provide a more effective and much less costly means of validating server platforms which feature high-speed serial buses like PCI Express (PCIe) that are capable of billions of data transfers per second. Intel recently announced that IBIST technology has been embedded into the most recent generations of some of its leading server and workstations platform chipsets, including the 5300 and 7300 Series Quad-Core Intel Xeon® processor-based platforms. ASSET's ScanWorks will also support Intel's next-generation Nehalem processor-based platforms with the Intel QuickPath interconnect. ScanWorks is able to control embedded instruments to perform functions like design validation, bit error ratio testing (BERT), SERDES (serializer/deserializer) testing and others.
This leads into other trends which are enfolding before our eyes. On one hand, we see that boundary scan will continue as a workhorse structural test technology, locating and diagnosing faults at the circuit-board and system levels. But, on the other hand, we are coming to realize just how critical JTAG has become as a design validation tool involving high-speeds serial buses. We see that the JTAG port is emerging as the de facto access and control mechanism for embedded intellectual property (IP) and instrumentation. IBIST and other initiatives such as the IEEE P1687 Internal JTAG (IJTAG) working group point to this migration toward embedded test instrumentation. In a certain sense, processor-based emulation can be seen as another form of embedded instrumentation technology.
It's what we believe the test world is coming to – embedded test and instrumentation accessed through technologies that include JTAG, processor emulation and others.
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