Guest commentary: Investment in JTAG standards development benefits entire industry
Glenn Woppman, ASSET InterTech -- Test & Measurement World, 2/16/2007 9:15:00 AM
The phrase, “No news is good news,” is all too often apropos of standards development. Let’s face it, many times we only hear about a standard under development when there’s a controversy or when someone has a complaint. The smooth, efficient, collaborative efforts of users, suppliers, academicians, and other interested parties are all too often largely unnoticed.
This is unfortunate because the value generated by open standards to our industry cannot be overstated. One can only wonder how stunted the growth of the industry would have been without the investment of many hours and much work that goes into developing open standards.
We, at ASSET InterTech, believe in the validity of standards and, over the years, we’ve demonstrated our commitment to these efforts with significant investment in terms of people-time and money. We’ve participated in both formal standards work sanctioned by groups like IEEE, JEDEC, and PICMG, and, at other times, we’ve been a part of ad hoc, informal working groups whose work sometimes leads to the development of a standard. The question of “formal vs. informal” doesn’t really matter. In the end, what matters most is the fact that the industry benefits from the collaborative efforts of the participants and we should be extremely thankful to these individuals. The current status of the IJTAG and SJTAG activities offers a case in point.
The IEEE P1687 IJTAG working group
IJTAG, which stands for Internal JTAG, is a working group under the auspices of the IEEE. The draft standard, which is designated as IEEE P1687, is being developed by an active working group of more than 10 engineers representing the electronic design automation, semiconductor, and board test industries. The group is well on its way toward formalizing a standard. The ultimate goal of the IJTAG working group is a fully ratified IEEE standard. The IJTAG group is trying to leverage the fundamental test access infrastructure defined in the IEEE 1149.1 JTAG standard and already embedded in chips and on boards. The standard would use this infrastructure to access and control on-chip test and measurement circuitry, such as built-in self test (BIST) mechanisms, high-speed input/output circuitry, and power monitors. The group believes that having a standard way of accessing, controlling and communicating with this embedded circuitry, which it refers to as “instruments,” will encourage greater development of these mechanisms and this would lead to their more widespread use in various functional and structural verification and test applications. (For more information on IJTAG, visit http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1687/.)
The SJTAG study group
In contrast to IJTAG, System JTAG, or SJTAG, is an informal study group. This is often the way a standards committee begins its work. The SJTAG group, which is led by technology visionaries from Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson, is examining how the IEEE 1149.1 JTAG infrastructure in chips and boards might be applied to system-level test functions. As an informal study group, the SJTAG initiative is less mature than IJTAG. As such, one of the questions the study group is asking itself is: “Do we really need another standard?”
Whatever the outcomes of the IJTAG and SJTAG initiatives may be, we can be certain that our industry will benefit from the hard work of the participants. All we need to do is look at the IEEE 1149.1 boundary-scan standard to see what it will take for the IJTAG and SJTAG initiatives to succeed. For the IEEE 1149.1 standard, broad industry-wide participation and education were essential to its success. Sure, the boundary scan standard was a good technical solution, but without the passion of the working group and its untiring efforts at education, the standard would not have succeeded. The chairman of the informal Joint Test Action Group (JTAG), and the IEEE P1149.1 working group that it spawned, Harry Bleeker, who was at Philips at the time and later at JTAG Technologies, encouraged everyone on the committee to communicate the group’s activities whenever we could. Creating awareness even when the standard was still in its preliminary stages of development was critical to its eventual success. Many standards, even technically advanced standards, come and go. The ones with staying power are those that are able to build support across a broad cross section of the industry. This only results from communicating, promoting, and educating. Over the years, many companies have contributed to the ongoing evolution of the IEEE 1149.1 standard, including our chief competitors, JTAG Technologies, Corelis, and Goepel.
After ratification, products are demonstrated, not standards
One of the most effective means of communicating the benefits of a standard is to demonstrate the issues and capabilities it is trying to address, even at a preliminary stage in its development. Usually, there is no better way to generate excitement and build momentum for a standardization effort than to offer a hands-on demonstration of what might become the capabilities of the standard, should it be ratified. In fact, the time when a technology demonstration is most needed is before a standard is ratified. After ratification, products are demonstrated, not standards.
Another success factor for a new standard is the involvement of companies that will use the technology, not just companies that will supply it. For example, when we participated in the development of the IEEE 1149.6 standard for the testing of high-speed AC-coupled buses, the committee was led by a customer of ours and a user company, Cisco Systems. Semiconductor companies were also involved. The standard arose from a shared need to enhance the testability of hardware designs that featured an increasing concentration of high-speed serial I/O. I can only speak for ASSET InterTech, but I think it would be safe to say that any company that invests time and money into any standards activity does so because the entire industry will eventually benefit from it.
My point is this: standards are adopted because users and suppliers benefit from the long hours that have gone into developing the standard. And the industry, through its adoption or rejection of the standard, is the ultimate arbiter of what stays and what goes.
We at ASSET InterTech have been involved in enough of these efforts over the years (IEEE 1149.1, IEEE 1532, PICMG’s MicroTCA, JEDEC’s STAPL, and others) to know that open standards will encourage growth and create a vibrant marketplace for us, our users and our competitors. To us, that sounds like an investment well worth making. That’s the sort of investment market-leading companies make.
Glenn Woppman is president and CEO of ASSET InterTech.
