Did you ever need a new board coming off the production line yesterday and it wouldn’t boot? It didn’t even try to come up and gave you no hint why? Typically you’d connect a debugger tool to see if you could get some signs of life. You might put some code into memory to start running some tests. But there’s no response from the processor and you can’t access any of the memory parts on the board. You’re stuck...
Continue reading "Why you need boundary scan in your board bring-up toolset " »
I was reflecting on how much processor speeds, memory, and data transmission rates have increased over the last few decades. And yet the same old tools and techniques are often used to bring up new designs. When do you think we fall off the cliff?
Ever heard the old saw about the guy (gal) that “went to a fight and a hockey game broke out”?
I’d characterize the ongoing debate on the value and longevity of In-Circuit Test (ICT) as a bit of a brawl…
One of our customers was experiencing field returns when 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports started failing to pass traffic at full line rate. How could they test for these failing boards in manufacturing and prevent them from getting out to customers?
Board bring up of an early prototype is one of the most important steps for a design team. The first boards must pass through a battery of tests to demonstrate that the hardware is rock-solid. Non-intrusive technologies can be used to accelerate this process.
I read an interesting paper recently suggesting that IEEE 1687-based tests were best run at ICT on the manufacturing floor. The article was, of course, written by an ICT vendor. This is patently not true and is even a little bit preposterous. Let me explain…
I found an interesting article on the pros and cons of ICT recently at http://www.electroviews.com/test/in-circuit.php. The document is a little dated (it looks like it was written in 2007), so I thought I would capture the essence of what was listed in this paper and add in some comments as well:
Is that old bed-of-nails rather prickly these days?
Legacy In-Circuit Test (ICT) has been diminishing in value for a long time. Let’s explore some of the current technical issues with ICT as test access on new circuit board designs continues to disappear.
As testing with legacy equipment becomes more problematic, engineers look for better ways to improve test coverage, enhance diagnostics, and speed up test times. But an overriding consideration is the cost of test – are the new test technologies more or less expensive than older solutions like ICT?
Those of you with a telecom background are no doubt aware of the “OSI Network Model”, also known as the OSI pyramid or stack. It is a way of sub-dividing a communications system into smaller parts called layers. A layer is a collection of similar functions that provide services to the layer above it and receives services from the layer below it. A decade ago, the telecommunications test industry underwent a revolution when platforms emerged that could cover multiple layers of the OSI stack. Now, the same thing is happening in the circuit board test industry...
