ASSET integrates ScanWorks with Teradyne's PXI Express

Last year, ASSET and Teradyne collaborated to integrate Scanworks into Teradyne's VXI-based Di-Series instruments, which are widely deployed in large-scale test systems in defense/aerospace, such as the Teradyne Spectrum 9100 and Lockheed Martin's LM-START. Now, ASSET and Teradyne are collaborating again, this time to integrate the non-intrusive, software-based ScanWorks tools with Teradyne's HSSub which provides support for custom and standardized high-speed digital buses in new or legacy test systems deployed in the defense and aerospace market. As a result, users of these ATE systems with Teradyne's PXI Express-based instruments will have immediate access to the cost-effective and robust boundary-scan and JTAG test and programming solutions on the ScanWorks platform.

Making the extensive boundary-scan and JTAG capabilities of ScanWorks available to circuit board manufacturers and defense contractors reduces their tests costs and test times significantly over the entire life cycle of a product, said Kent Zetterberg, ASSET's product manager for ScanWorks boundary-scan test tools. For example, tests developed on a standalone ScanWorks platform during the product design phase will shorten and simplify prototype board bring-up significantly. Then later, those same tests can migrate with the design when it moves into manufacturing where the same tests can be easily re-used, eliminating test development costs for the manufacturing organization. And later in the life cycle, in repair and maintenance depots, those same tests can be re-used again to debug and troubleshoot boards. So, the cost of test is reduced significantly over all phases of the product's life cycle. For programs stretching over several years, the savings can be substantial.

For some time now, our users have been interested in testing and debugging their hardware with the ScanWorks non-intrusive software-based boundary-scan tools. As a result of this integration of ScanWorks, our users can quickly deploy these tools with HSSub-equipped large-scale testers and ATE equipment, said Peter Hansen, instrumentation product manager for Teradyne. These large-scale ATE systems suddenly have access to all of the ScanWorks boundary-scan tests that have been developed in the lab to validate and bring-up designs because the same ScanWorks runtime software is running on the ATE systems.

ScanWorks was integrated into Teradyne's HSSub through its Boundary Scan Runtime Library, a software facility that gives access to several of its instrument families through an application programming interface. As a result of the integration, the ScanWorks boundary-scan and JTAG tools are able to test a circuit board through the high-speed communications channels on a Teradyne instrument. These channels connect ScanWorks to the boundary-scan Test Access Port on the circuit board that's being tested.