Boundary-Scan Firms Announce Products at Apex
Rick Nelson, Executive Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 3/1/2004
Complete APEX Coverage Optical and X-Ray Systems Products at Apex |
Boundary-scan companies Asset Intertech and JTAG Technologies chose Apex (Anaheim, CA, February 24-26, 2004) to introduce new versions or adaptations of their boundary-scan tools.
Asset Intertech (www.asset-intertech.com) introduced the ScanWorks Assistant in the latest version of its ScanWorks boundary-scan software. The new ScanWorks version also includes capabilities called Scan Path Discovery, which aims to streamline boundary-scan test generation, and Multiple Scan Path Support, which provides flexible access to boards with more than one scan path.
Scan Path Assistant provides step-by-step advice to benefit new and occasional users. It provides advice on how to describe a board under test, how to generate basic scan-path verification and interconnect test, and how to create a test sequence. Skilled engineers can turn off ScanWorks Assistant.
Scan Path Discovery employs ScanWorks’s TopCAT (Topology and Cluster Analysis Technology) to automatically find scan paths from a design’s netlist, making it unnecessary for engineers to perform that task manually from hundred-page or more schematics. Scan Path Discovery locates descriptive files for each device on a scan path, develops a block diagram of the scan path, and generates scan-path verification code for ScanWorks to execute.
Multiple Scan Support serves designs such as those for CPUs or CPLDs that employ more than one scan path. With Multiple Scan Support, a single ScanWorks test action can activate any combination of scan paths on a board, reconfiguring scan paths to meet particular test requirements.
ScanWorks limited-term licenses start at $6000.
For its part, JTAG Technologies (www.jtag.com) announced that its Symphony APT-9000 boundary-scan tool for Series 9000 flying-probe systems from Takaya (www.texmac.com/takaya.html), whose representatives were also at the show to demonstrate the flying-probe systems. JTAG's Symphony APT-9000, in addition to applying boundary-scan signals to a board-under-test via fixed probes, provides for dynamic control of the flying probes as well. Boundary-scan test development occurs off-line, freeing up flying-probe systems for production test. Symphony APT-9000 costs $25,000.
