Flying probe tester links with boundary scan

Goepel Electronic and Scorpion Technologies have developed a new JTAG/boundary scan option for the Scorpion FPT flying probe tester.

Goepel Electronic and Scorpion Technologies have developed a new JTAG/boundary scan option for the Scorpion FPT flying probe tester.

The solution is based on the integration of the Cascon Galaxy software and new Scanflex hardware into the flexible flying probe test system with up to 24 probes that can be freely positioned and used as virtual boundary scan pins.

According to Bettina Becker, Marketing and International Sales Manager for Goepel Electronic: "Now we meet the customer requirements of a perfect system combination consisting of Goepel Electronic's JTAG/boundary scan and Scorpion flying prober".

"The result of the development co-operation is a completely integrated solution with interaction of the test resources of both systems".

"In particular, the direct control of the ICT pin electronics by the boundary scan environment has the advantage of each probe acting as additional virtual scan pin in a boundary scan test".

"The user is now able to achieve a significant increase in test coverage for digital as well as mixed signal ICs, whereby boundary scan procedures already utilised in the lab can be completely reused without modifications".

Heinz Uschakow, Product Marketing Manager for Scorpion Technologies says: "This integration offers a unique solution for our customers".

"The flexible double-sided contact possibilities for up to 24 probes combined with boundary scan creates an extraordinary possibility for PCB testing".

"Now our customers are able to achieve the highest possible first-pass-yield with finished functional tests being the highest quality available for production test".

"It's a solution that results in production optimisation, quality improvement and cost reduction for all users".

In terms of hardware, the integration is based on the high-performance SFX/PCI1149-x Scanflex PCI controller with programmable clock frequencies up to 20MHz (A type) and 50MHz (B type), respectively.

The connection to the UUT is via a Scanflex SFX-TAP4/C transceiver, which provides four parallel taps and up to eight programmable interface parameters for the optimal adaptation to the UUT.

The UUT is connected by means of the standard interface of the flying Scorpion.

The reliable Scanflex tap-transceiver with CION interface enables the direct control of UUTs up to 1.5m away.

No additional electronics is required.

Furthermore, 32 dynamic I/O pins are available on the Scanflex hardware.

In terms of software, the complete Cascon Galaxy development and execution environment was integrated into the operating system by Scorpion via the user friendly CAPI interface (Cascon application programming interface).

Thus, all Cascon software editions can run on the FPT.

The FPT pin electronics' control is managed with the Hyscan technology implemented in Cascon Galaxy.

Hyscan enables the synchronisation of serial JTAG/boundary scan test vectors with parallel test vectors through a special emulation process.

The parallel vectors are linked to the physical I/O interface at run time, providing tester hardware independence.

The manual or automated generation of test vectors, the debugging, and the fault diagnostic is executed by the native JTAG/boundary scan tools, whereby each flying probe acts as a boundary scan pin at the contacted net, completely transparent to the user.

Special knowledge about the detailed runs is not necessary because data handling is executed automatically.

Further integration solutions are already under development, for example for the MDA manufacturing defects analyser from Scorpion Technologies.

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