Category: Processor-Controlled Test (PCT)

As we’ve covered in some previous blogs, the differential, AC-coupled nature of PCI Express allows this bus to be somewhat self-healing, whereby some structural defects will allow the bus to transparently run, albeit at a degraded performance. Due to this, these short-circuit and open-circuit defects may be completely masked from conventional functional test. But such defects are important to detect, because they will affect the throughput of the port. Boundary scan can be used to detect these defects, subject to the implementation of IEEE 1149.1 and IEEE 1149.6 in the chips.
Last month, we saw how defects on memory data lines can cause a system to fail, and yet escape detection by the system boot loader or BIOS. Let’s examine this in more technical detail.
In the first two parts of this multi-part blog, we reviewed different kinds of short circuit, open circuit, and stuck-at faults and how they might affect link performance. Let’s recap and rank these defects and see what we can do about them.
In my last few blogs, I’ve talked about the challenges of testing QPI, PCI Express, SATA 3, and DDR3 memory. These buses are common to many Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge motherboard designs. Should test engineers take chances and just not test them?
When you come right down to it, we spend too many days/nights, weeks and weekends writing code for device configuration, production test and system test. The question I’d like to raise is: What is the value of these home grown tests? Do they provide intrinsic and tangible value to your end customer?
Archives