In the News

Testing of medium-complexity printed circuit boards (PCBs) at the end of production has traditionally been carried out using in-circuit testing (ICT) and functional testing. Other test methods, such as costly optical and X-ray inspection, are often necessary to verify that BGAs are correctly placed. JTAG boundary scan however, can replace ICT as the natural counterpart to functional testing and make optical and X-ray inspection unnecessary.

Stable and reliable test procedures are important to avoid unnecessary, and sometimes costly, delays in production. Identifying and resolving test fixture connection problems between a device under test (DUT) and the automatic test equipment (ATE) can be time consuming, but by following some simple guidelines when designing both the DUT and fixture, test stability can be significantly improved ...

XJTAG has released version 3.2 of its boundary scan development system, with a focus on enabling engineers to test boards for which they do not have access to a netlist. This new feature is particularly useful to repair engineers, who are often required to work on boards without having access to a netlist. Where previously they would not be able to use boundary scan, or be delayed by having to seek out these netlists from their customers before beginning any work, testing can now begin without delay.