Connect - ASSET InterTech

You’ll see several news items in this issue of Connect which reinforce our belief in the critical importance of embedded instrumentation. That’s an indication that the industry is right there with us. On one hand, we’ve received support from two of the biggest EDA tools vendors, Cadence and Mentor. On the other hand, we’ve seen two major semiconductor companies, Avago and Maxim, signal their interest in embedded instrumentation.

A buy-in into the concept of embedded instrumentation by EDA tools suppliers is critical because it is these companies that will provide chip makers with the ability to easily embed design validation, test and debug functionality in the form of embedded instrumentation into chips. It starts with chips and getting the chip tools companies on the embedded instrumentation bandwagon is huge.

The last issue of Connect mentioned that we had joined Mentor’s Open Door program. Being one of a handful of members in the Open Door program shows that Mentor understands that the downstream tools that the ScanWorks platform provides are just as important to system designers, manufacturing engineers and field service personnel. Interoperability between Mentor’s upstream insertion tools and our downstream access, automation and analysis tools ensures the effectiveness of embedded instruments during every phase of a chip’s and a system’s lifecycle.

Since the last Connect, we’ve also announced that Cadence and ASSET are collaborating to integrate ScanWorks into the Cadence Encounter Digital IC Design flow. In addition to ScanWorks’ board-level embedded instrumentation capabilities, this integration with Cadence will enable chip design and test engineers to embed instrumentation tools into complex system-on-chip (SoC) and system-in-package (SiP) devices, providing deep analysis and test of these chips even after installation in the final product. This project kicked off immediately following our admittance into the Cadence Connections partner program. Our initial efforts with Cadence will provide tools and flows that support the preliminary IEEE P1687 Internal JTAG (IJTAG) standard which is defining how instruments embedded into chips will be controlled, automated and managed.

Moving up one rung on the ladder from the EDA tools vendors, chip suppliers Avago and Maxim have also demonstrated their support for the embedded instrumentation concept.

Specifically, Avago and ASSET reached an agreement whereby our ScanWorks embedded instrumentation platform would support Avago’s serializer/deserializer (SERDES) cores that deploy Intel®’s QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) architecture and support Intel’s Interconnect Built In Self Test (IBIST) embedded instrumentation technology. ScanWorks is the only tools platform that supports the embedded instrumentation technology of Intel IBIST. Now, engineers are able to rapidly access and test via embedded instrumentation both an Intel chipset and the Avago SERDES core with a single tool, ScanWorks.

To make several new families of system monitors and system manager devices easier to use, Maxim sought the support of ScanWorks. Rick Gould, Executive Director of Business Management for Maxim’s System and Power Management Business Unit said at the time of the announcement that “several of our customers requested we seek ScanWorks support. Now, engineers can use our tools during design and ScanWorks throughout the product lifecycle, including design, manufacturing and field service…ScanWorks is powerful in that it can access, automate and analyze embedded instrumentation such as the voltage margining embedded in our devices.”

These developments certainly bode well for the proliferation of embedded instrumentation in the industry. Chip design, validation and test come at the front-end of the long process that eventually leads to the development of end-user systems. Seeing front-end companies like the EDA tools vendors and chip makers getting behind and pushing embedded instrumentation will have significant benefits later on when circuit boards and systems are being developed and tested with our tools for embedded instrumentation.

And ScanWorks will be right there for the designers and test engineers with the embedded instrumentation tools and functionality that will be needed.