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Boundary scan accelerates VoIP test

Karla May, Manager of Strategic Accounts, Corelis- August 1, 2006

As more new processors and communication electronics are designed to include boundary-scan chains, boundary-scan testing of multiple circuit boards in parallel is becoming a way to cut both time and costs out of the test cycles of product manufacturing. A single operator can test multiple boards simultaneously from a single PC. With these new boundary-scan (JTAG) tools, it takes the same amount of time to test four boards as 1000.

A simple test setup involves connecting the test controller to a PC through a PCI, USB, LAN, or cPCI interface, then to multiport TAP pods to accommodate the UUT.

Zultys Technologies, a maker of VoIP products, is embracing boundary scan as the company acts to take advantage of enterprise-level VoIP applications that are predicted to grow at 20% annual rates through 2009. To meet its time-to-market, costs, and quality requirements, Zultys is employing Corelis boundary-scan hardware to perform concurrent testing and programming of multiple units without operator intervention. With the Zultys implementation, Test Access Ports (TAPs) on a remote test pod have a dedicated pin on the JTAG interface connector that can detect the presence of the target board. The software monitors the state of this signal to detect both the presence of the target device as well as the proper insertion of the test cable.

The hardware applies simultaneous test vectors and in-system programming (ISP) patterns to each board, and it performs individual, simultaneous verification. Any failure of one board will be logged but doesn't prohibit the continuation of testing on all the other units under test (UUTs). From there, additional hardware choices fan the connection out to accommodate more and more units at once.

The details of how Zultys applies boundary scan in its "push-line" conveyer-belt assembly process are available in a paper at www.corelis.com/products/WhitePapers.htm#zultys.