Former NI executive, Tim Dehne, sees a great future for ASSET

Question: What made you decide to join the ASSET board?

Answer: Over the years, ASSET has established itself as a leader in the boundary scan/JTAG market for structural circuit board test. ASSET is the top company in this segment, but it’s something of a niche market. What really excited me about joining the board was the opportunity to help ASSET take advantage of what I see as some pretty good growth potential.

Question: Where do you see this growth coming from?

Answer: First you have to realize that it’s a complicated world out there and it’s becoming even more complicated every day. In the semiconductor market, you have multiple cores in chips, intellectual property (IP) coming from many different sources and numerous other factors at both the chip and circuit board levels. And, as a test engineer, you’re battling the absence of physical access to chips and circuit boards. The growth is going to come as the industry figures out how to get beyond all these complexities in a cost-effective manner. ASSET is already establishing a position in this direction with its non-intrusive board test (NBT) strategy. The company is well positioned to take some very big steps in the future.

Question: How did ASSET end up so well positioned?

Answer: Well, first you have to hand it to the ASSET management team and, in particular, Glenn Woppman, president and CEO of ASSET, for studying the market and its growth potential and then having the courage to put together the business plans and technical product roadmaps to attack those opportunities. When I sat down with Glenn and he explained his vision to me, I started to see what he was talking about and that got me pretty excited. That’s when I wanted to get involved.

Question: Are there similarities between where ASSET is now and where NI was when you joined that company?

Answer: Yes, there are many similarities. ASSET is leading the industry into a new era involving embedded instrumentation. During my time at NI, we pioneered the concept of virtual instruments to the industry and developed a strong platform around the LabVIEW software. I am very enthusiastic about bringing the insights and experiences I’ve gained throughout the years to ASSET as a member of the board of directors.

Question: When did you first become aware of ASSET and its prospects for the future?

Answer: I’ve known about ASSET since it became an independent company in 1995. That’s when I first met Glenn Woppman and we talked about the synergies that we saw between ASSET and National Instruments at the time. Since then, I’ve followed the company informally from afar and now I’m very glad that I can get involved in a substantive way.

Question: You mentioned ASSET’s leadership role in boundary-scan test (JTAG); what other aspects of the company’s technology have impressed you?

Answer: ASSET has added other related tools around the boundary-scan test capabilities of its ScanWorks platform for embedded instrumentation and brought it to the point where it can replace and add to the test coverage that the older intrusive probe-based test technologies like ICT and flying probe have lost in recent years. For example, processor-controlled test (PCT) and tools for Intel®’s Interconnect Built-In Self Test (IBIST) function alongside boundary-scan test on the ScanWorks platform. When you start putting together test strategies that apply all of these non-intrusive board test technologies, you can readily see that the test coverage is going to improve. And then you realize that the cost of ScanWorks is low relative to the older hardware-intense test technologies because ScanWorks is software-driven. You add up all these factors and it leaves you with a good impression of the company, its technology and its prospects for the future.