Gateways bring JTAG testing onboard

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team May 8, 2003

Two new JTAG gateway ICs enable design engineers to easily implement the IEEE1149.1 standard.

Two new JTAG gateway ICs enable design engineers to easily implement the IEEE1149.1 standard.

The JTS03/06 manufactured by Firecron incorporate many advanced features that allow customers to realise their design objectives in a testable and hence a manufacturable manner.

The devices provide enhanced capabilities over and above the standard IEEE1149.1 protocol enabling them to be used in a true multidrop environment, the devices being fully addressable using only the IEEE1149.1 standard signals.

This capability enables the IEEE1149.1 interface to be used not just for stand-alone printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) testing but complete system testing including all PCBAs within a system as well as PCB to PCB via the backplane.

The JTS03/06 also allow partitioning of the PCBA into multiple small scan chains totally under software control.

Fault diagnostics are therefore simplified because a fault on one of the local scan ports will not render the rest of the board untestable.

The JTS03 features a maximum of three chains per device, whereas the JTS06 has a maximum of six.

Partitioning also facilitates faster programming of system devices, such as Flash memory and FPGAs, during test.

An interesting feature of the devices is a local scan port enable, which provides the ability to use non-IEEE1149.1 compliant devices in the system .

The JTS03/06 incorporate a IEEE1149.1 usercode instruction which allows data programming on the device I/O enabling PCB identification and revision information to be accessed thus ensuring the correct tests are applied to the PCB.

Other key features include status instruction support which enables nonintrusive monitoring of the system card, the ability to initiate self test on a remote PCB via a standard IEEE1149.1 command and a pass-through mode for device bypass.

Available in both commercial (0 to 70C) and industrial (-40 to +85C) operating temperature ranges, the Firecron JTS03 is available in a 100-pin LQFP or 256-pin fine-line BGA, and the JTS06 is packaged in a 256-pin LQFP.

Both devices are fully supported by third-party automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) vendors such as Asset-Intertech, Goepel and JTAG Technologies.

Samples, data and evaluation boards are fully available now from Pulsar Electronics.