New whitepaper discusses the imperatives driving non-intrusive board test (NBT)

A recent whitepaper posted to the ASSET web site defines what the term non-intrusive board test (NBT) means and the causative factors that are increasing the momentum behind the concept in the test industry. “Economics, Technology Drive Industry to Non-Intrusive Board Test” by Alan Sguigna, ASSET’s vice president of sales and marketing, reviews why the older probe-based intrusive test technologies like in-circuit test (ICT), flying probe, manufacturing defect analyzers and others are delivering less and less test coverage or diagnostic information. Fortunately, non-intrusive test technologies like boundary-scan test, processor-controlled test and tools to take advantage of Intel®’s IBIST embedded instrumentation recover this lost coverage and can actually increase total test coverage.

The high-level whitepaper points out that necessity has dictated that NBT take on an increasingly critical role in contemporary board test strategies. Over the last few years, testing with the old, intrusive test technologies has become prohibitively expensive. As a result, it has become increasingly more difficult for manufacturers to justify old-generation intrusive test equipment like ICT when the test coverage it offers is diminishing but its price tag and operating expenses are still exorbitantly high.

Of course, there are many technical variables that make NBT a necessity rather than a luxury. In recent years, circuit board design practices have become more complex. For example, chip-to-chip interconnects have shifted away from broad parallel buses to high-speed serial interconnects. Many circuit boards are now composed of multiple layers of fiberglass, burying some of the board’s interconnect traces deep within the substrate. These and other factors have contributed to the disappearance of the physical access that intrusive test technologies like ICT and oscilloscopes have relied on for many years.

The paper concludes with an explanation of how the ScanWorks® platform for embedded instrumentation supports an NBT test strategy made up of boundary-scan test, PCT and IBIST.

To download a free copy of this whitepaper, click here to go to the whitepaper page on the ASSET web site. While there, please review the other whitepapers that are available.