Jena – GOEPEL electronic, worldwide leading vendor of JTAG/Boundary Scan solutions compliant with IEEE1149.x announces the development of a specific ScanRouter functional library for the support of the Linking Addressable Scan Port (LASP) Multi Drop TAP Transceiver LVT8986 by Texas Instruments™ in the context of the Boundary Scan software platform SYSTEM CASCON™.

The new functions allow complete process automation when using the LVT8986 for hierarchical Boundary Scan Tests, In-System Programming (ISP) and Emulation Tests on the board and system level.

“With the development of the new software functions for the LVT8986 we not only expand our support for the product family of powerful Boundary Scan TAP transceivers by Texas Instruments, but also stimulate the utilisation of hierarchical Multi-Drop architectures for the test of highly complex boards and systems,” says Thomas Wenzel, Director of the Boundary Scan division at GOEPEL electronic. “The combination of our tools with the ASP/LASP components by TI enables the user to realise innovative Boundary Scan Tests and ISP concepts in the design stage and to use them conveniently in the daily practice.”

“From the inception of JTAG/Boundary Scan, TI has been a supporter of the latest advances in testability, emulation, and programmability for IEEE 1149.1 compliant systems.The support for TI's LVT8986 Linking Addressable Scan Port (LASP) in SYSTEM CASCON™ from GOEPEL electronicwill provide more of our customers the ability to quickly design partitioned JTAG systems using the flexibility of scan chain configuration that the LASP provides”, says Brad Little, General Manager, High Reliability, Texas Instruments.

The LVT8986 functional library supports all involved steps within a project development, starting from the automatic scan path recognition from the CAD data, the Automatic Testprogram Generation (ATPG), the automatic Pin Failure Diagnostics (PFD), the graphical fault localisation, the debugging, as well as the In-System Programming of Flash/PLD/MCU all in a fully integrated environment. Scan operations, in which several LASP are involved, are clearly distributed to the single LASP and then synchronised. This also affects the use of mixed ASP/LASP structures within one design.

Due to the high level of automation, failures by the user can be prevented and the productivity of the project development can be increased.

The handling of the secondary scan paths is done dynamically, i.e. all, some or only one TAP can be active. For this the software offers special park and unpark commands, by which unneeded TAPs can be switched to inactive for a temporary or permanent period in the test program. The cascading feature of the LVT8986 is fully supported. The use of manually generated scan path descriptions with rigid configurations is completely omitted. Due to this, the solution becomes extremely flexible and efficient.

Based on this, the ATPG tools are able to generate board-internal connection tests, and to access the LVT8986 in connection with the backplane for executing board-to-board tests. The test standards IEEE1149.1 and IEEE1149.6 are available for the test of AC coupled networks.

In addition FPGA/CPLDs can be easily programmed via IEEE1532, SVF or JESD71 (JAM/STAPL) in the secondary scan path of a LASP, without the programming files containing information about the target configuration. Again, the handling of the scan paths is done automatically.

The new software functions for the LVT8986 are integrated as standard starting from SYSTEM CASCON™ version 4.5. They are activated by the licence manager. The delivery of the release has already started and is free of charge for users with a valid maintenance contract. In addition to that, GOEPEL electronic developed an evaluation board with three cascaded LVT8986, which is available on request.