Non-intrusive test on the rise, Fenton predicts
Following the recent acquisition by ASSET of International Test Technologies (ITT), Billy Fenton, one of the founders of ITT, took a few moments to answer a few questions about the implications of the merger for ScanWorks users and to reminisce about the years he spent nurturing ITT.
 Q: Over the short term, what will be the effects of this merger on ASSET and ITT users?
A: We’ll see the technologies of the two companies coming together and becoming even more tightly coupled than they have been. ASSET’s ScanWorks boundary-scan system and ITT’s MicroMaster JTAG-based functional test system have a lot in common and are quite complementary. Users will soon have more options within ScanWorks and independently of ScanWorks. Most importantly, you’ll see greater testability for users because they’ll be able to test areas on circuit boards that they haven’t been able to test in the past with other non-intrusive test technologies.
Q: Strategically, what do you think this merger will mean for ASSET?
A: It certainly gives ASSET an advantage over many of its competitors because now ASSET can offer test strategies that go beyond the typical shorts-and-opens types of test strategies that are the forte of boundary scan. MicroMaster’s functional test capabilities will open some of these doors.
Q: How long has ITT been around and how did it get started?
A: ITT traces its beginning back to the mid-1980s when we formed a small company to focus on printed circuit board test issues. In the early 1990s we began to work with IBM on test technology for PS2 motherboards. Then, in 1992, ITT was formed as a company. We were partially funded by IBM and venture capital, and IBM helped us establish our corporate strategies. This worked well for a period of time, but IBM’s PS2 technology never really took off, so we had to re-invent the company.
Q: What did you do?
A: Well, in the mid-1990s we started talking to Intel and eventually formed a relationship with that company. We worked closely with them to develop test solutions for their motherboards. I was the technical director of ITT at the time. Then, toward the end of the 1990s we were approached by GenRad Corporation. They wanted to work with us to develop test solutions for PC manufacturers. This led to the development of MicroMaster, but by the year 2000 much of the PC manufacturing was migrating to Asia. And then GenRad was acquired by Teradyne and then the Internet bubble burst.
Q: Did all of this have a major impact on ITT?
A: It meant that we had to take the MicroMaster technology in a different direction. It had to become a product independent of GenRad and we started promoting it and developing it on its own. And we started to look at new markets and go off in directions that led away from our traditional PC motherboard marketplace and brought us to what you might call the embedded test market. It ultimately led us to begin working with ASSET and we’re very happy about that.
Q: Why do you think ITT’s relationship with ASSET worked so well?
A: For one thing, our two companies are both involved in non-intrusive test; or, what some people are calling embedded instruments these days. Going forward, I think we’ll see a lot of activity in this area. We’ve already seen it with Intel™’s development and deployment of Interconnect Built In Self Test (IBIST), an embedded test technology for its processors and chipsets.
To read the recent news release announcing ASSET's acquisition of ITT, click here. |
