Goepel Electronic has developed a boundary scan option for the Spea FPT 4040 flying probe tester as part of an OEM agreement.

Goepel Electronic has developed a boundary scan option for the Spea FPT 4040 flying probe tester as part of an OEM agreement. The solution is based on the integration of the Cascon Galaxy software and new Scanflex hardware into the flexible flying probe test system, involving the FPT probes to extended the boundary scan tests. 'Combining the capabilities of Spea's flying prober with Goepel Electronic JTAG/boundary scan solutions benefits customers by offering significantly higher test throughput due to optimised use of tester resources, applying the most efficient test technology for specific board structures', says Bettina Richter, Marketing and International Sales Manager for Goepel Electronic.

'The possibility to reuse existing boundary scan applications for testing and programming Flash components or PLDs makes this solution very attractive due to a short return-on-investment, in particular for contract manufacturers'.

'One of the main advantages of the integration between the Spea 4040 flying probe test system and Goepel Electronic Scanflex boundary scan is related to the improvement in test coverage, specifically in digital complex boards where most of the devices are complex PLDs, ASIC or similar components', says Flavio Tronzano, Test Specialist for Spea.

'This is possible because during boundary scan test execution the 4040's probes are used to contact nets, not directly connected to the boundary scan chain (non-boundary-scan pins)'.

'The probes simulate the presence of boundary scan devices (holding the pins in a logic state) thereby increasing the test coverage and diagnostic'.

In terms of hardware, the integration is based on the high-performance Scanflex SFX/USL1149-x USB/LAN controller models with clock frequencies of 20MHz (A type) or 50MHz (B type).

The JTAG test bus connection to the unit under test (UUT) is realised with a Scanflex model SFX-TAP4/CR transceiver, which provides four parallel TAPs with interposing relays and up to eight programmable interface parameters for the optimal adaptation to the UUT, connected to the standard interface of the flying prober.

The distance between Scanflex TAP-transceiver with Cion interface and UUT can be up to 1.5m, without the need for additional signal conditioning.

During boundary scan mode the flying probes are used to extend the boundary scan test coverage and are directly controlled by the native pin electronics of the 4040, requiring no extra driver/sensor circuitry.

In terms of software, the complete Cascon Galaxy development and execution environment has been integrated into the Flying Prober's operating system Leonardo via the user friendly CAPI (Cascon application programming interface).

The test vectors' link to the flying probes is managed through the Hyscan technology implemented in Cascon Galaxy.

Hyscan enables the synchronisation of serial JTAG/boundary scan test vectors with parallel test vectors.

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

In the case of a flying probe tester, the flying probes make up this physical I/O interface.

The automated or manual generation of test vectors, the debugging, and the fault diagnostic is done with Goepel Electronic's JTAG/boundary scan tools.

Each flying probe acts as an additional bidirectional boundary scan pin at the contacted net.

Detailed knowledge about the integration is not needed because data handling is done automatically.

The first Spea 4040 systems with integrated JTAG/boundary scan from Goepel Electronic, including customer applications, have already been delivered.