Publications

Reducing the PCB Bone Pile: Optimizing Test Strategy

We are often not aware, how to reduce the PCB bone pile. The answer is : optimizing the test strategy. Having worked within an established company in the world of PCB assembly testing for many years we still come across companies (OEMs) who will tell us, “We don’t need to test, because we demand that the contract manufacturer (CM) only send us 100 percent working boards.” But, demanding and receiving are two different matters. No one can totally accomplish this, and even if they could, what does it actually cost? There’s an old saying in the engineering industry: “If it hasn’t been tested, then it doesn’t work” — rather, you should assume it doesn’t work. Most people however assume the opposite, and that is where the problems start. So the question remains how to optimze your test strategy.

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ELECTRONICS WEEKLY – SEPTEMBER 2019 – JTAG EVOLUTION

Confusion about what is or isn’t JTAG is a continuing debate. The acronym stands for the Joint Test Action Group, the committee of engineers who defined the boundary-scan standard (IEEE std 1149.1) between 1986 and 1990.

As JTAG Test tools evolve to match use cases this article describes what is and what isn’t JTAG?

The many faces of the JTAG interface port

For many the term “JTAG” is still a point of confusion; for some engineers it is a device-programming port while for others it is for plugging in a microprocessor emulator or debugger, whereas, in fact, it was originally devised for neither. JTAG is an acronym of “Joint Test Action Group”, and initially the aim was to provide an alternative system to aid circuit board assembly testing, i.e. for detecting and diagnosing assembly errors such as solder shorts, lifted pins and missing/badly-placed components. The Group in JTAG refers to a small number of test professionals who met over a period of four to five years from 1985, to devise a scheme to embed test circuitry into digital devices with the aim of assisting in the structural test of PCBA(s). Similar schemes had been developed unilaterally by device manufacturers, such as IBM’s LSSD, but at that point there was no interoperability standard that all vendors could comply to. By 1990, the JTAG system, also known as “boundary-scan”, was officially an IEEE standard number 1149.1.

Read full article on Electronics world

JFT – Functional electronics testing without a single line of code (by Etteplan)

EXPERTISE

Testing of an embedded digital system, a combination of electronics and software,  has traditionally required some sort of embedded software specifically created for testing. These test versions are downloaded to the product’s processor before testing is possible. ”A significant amount of work and project  time is  often spent on producing test versions of the embedded software and possibly FPGA code”, tells Senior Project Manager Ilpo Harjumäki.

”A new testing technology we have started to employ makes these separate test versions redundant. This new technology has been utilized within Etteplan for almost two years now” tells Ilpo Harjumäki proudly.  The new solution is based on a combination of  JTAG Functional Testing –  JFT, and National Instrumenst ‘LabVIEW’.