New tools boost boundary scan flexibility of ScanWorks® platform

ScanWorks® has long been distinguished for its boundary scan and structural test functionality. ASSET has continued to advance the state-of-the-art in boundary scan test with the introduction of significant enhancements and added flexibility to ScanWorks’ non-intrusive structural test capabilities.   And plans for ScanWorks’s future call for more of the same.

Most recently, ScanWorks morphed into embeddable intellectual property (IP). The new ScanWorks for Embedded Boundary Scan can be easily embedded into high-availability systems where it can apply system-level JTAG (SJTAG) test, diagnostic and programming algorithms. Typically, the ScanWorks for Embedded Boundary Scan IP will be embedded into systems where any ScanWorks functionality can be initiated locally or remotely to meet installation, commissioning and field service requirements.

Both the original JTAG standard, IEEE 1149.1, and the newer 1149.6 standard for testing high-speed AC coupled differential interconnects are supported by ScanWorks for Embedded Boundary Scan.

ASSET’s vice president of sales and marketing, Alan Sguigna, explained the need for ScanWorks for Embedded Boundary Scan. “Some system designers, needing extremely high reliability, have undertaken costly internal development efforts to embed boundary scan in their hardware. Now, designers can deploy our embeddable ScanWorks IP as an off-the-shelf solution at much less cost than developing and maintaining their own,” Alan said.

With ScanWorks for Embedded Boundary Scan, system manufacturers can offer their users unparalleled control of operations, administration and maintenance of systems installed in the field. High-availability, fault-tolerant systems, such as those in telecom, high-end computing and defense, can use ScanWorks for Embedded Boundary Scan to deploy the JTAG infrastructure in their systems as a secondary maintenance bus for remote test, diagnostics and provisioning.

World Wide Test

In addition to ScanWorks for Embedded Boundary scan, a new family of controllers – the Remote Instrumentation Controllers (RIC) – were recently introduced for the ScanWorks platform. The first member of the RIC family, the RIC-1000 model, is the industry’s first to apply JTAG/boundary scan tests directly over the Internet. The RIC-1000 controller connects locally to a circuit board or other unit under test (UUT) and remotely over Ethernet to ScanWorks.

Similarly to the World Wide Web, RIC controllers have enabled World Wide Test because ScanWorks users can now apply tests anywhere in the world via the Internet.

“The World Wide Web changed the way we live and work. On a smaller scale, we believe that our Remote Instrumentation Controller family will do the same sort of thing for design validation, test and debug,” Sguigna said. “We’ve added another dimension to test by placing it outside of place and time. And, in terms of cost-effectiveness, the RIC family gives both large and small companies the ability to pinpoint their human and test technology resources wherever and whenever they are needed.”

The RIC family of controllers incorporates local intelligence in the controller module and implements a client/server architecture in relation to a remote ScanWorks station. Each RIC can be assigned an Internet Protocol address. As a result, a test engineer at a ScanWorks station in the United States could apply tests via a RIC over the Internet on a circuit board being manufactured in a factory in Asia, for example. The need for a ScanWorks test station running on a personal computer and other equipment local to the RIC and the circuit board being tested is eliminated.

Boundary scan futures

Boundary scan test technology continues to defy conventional thinking. Even though the original IEEE 1149.1 standard was developed back in the early 1990s, boundary scan has reinvented itself several times over. Along the way it has spawned new and effective ways to perform non-intrusive test, diagnostics and debug. With ASSET leading the way, the industry can expect an ongoing stream of enhancements, improvements and breakthroughs that will continue breathing new life into this vital technology.