VarioTAP supports non JTAG Interfaces

10th May 2010

ES Admin

0 0

During its „Boundary Scan Days Germany“, GOEPEL electronic introduced the further development of the innovative emulation technology VarioTAP for the support of non JTAG debug interfaces. The new features enable the broad coverage of various proprietary debug architectures of different chip manufacturers without utilising processor specific pods. The first interfaces to be supported are the so called BDM interface (Background Debug Mode) and the MCU of the Freescale MPC5xx series with power architecture. The available functionality of VarioTAP® ranges from Flash programming up to emulation test at system level.

“The new features for the equal treatment of JTAG and non JTAG interfaces are an important strategic step in our VarioTAP® roadmap, and extend this innovative emulation technology’s practical effectivity”, Bettina Richter, GOEPEL electronic’s Corporate Marketing Manager is glad to announce. “Our solutions rises to the position of being the most universal and flexible on the market – with far reaching customer benefits throughout the entire product life cycle for such important factors such as test quality, programming speed, investment costs and in particular time-to-market.”

Identically to existing principles, the non JTAG targets are connected to an available Access Port, whereby a mixture with JTAG targets via several ports is possible. By using the hardware platform SCANFLEX®, for example up to eight different targets can be controlled. Gang applications such as simultaneous Flash programming are also supported.

During the programming of embedded or external Flash, the script generation is done automatically. The IP functions for bus emulation and system emulation enable a functional test of on-chip interfaces without prior Flash firmware programming as well as the execution of customer defined program codes by means of a VarioTAP® model API.

The use of VarioTAP® does not require expert background knowledge, additional development tools or processor-specific pods, which makes the handling easy and uncomplicated.

Due to the OEM cooperation with all leading vendors of In-Circuit Testers (ICT), Manufacturing Defect Analysers (MDA), Flying Probe Testers (FPT) and Functionality Testers (FT), the new solution is available for production with immediate effect.

The new VarioTAP IP models are supported as standard starting from SYSTEM CASCON™ version 4.5.3, and are activated by the licence manager like the system software. SYSTEM CASCON™ is a professional JTAG/Boundary Scan development environment, developed by GOEPEL electronic with currently more than 40 completely integrated ISP, test, and debug tools. Regarding the hardware, VarioTAP® is completely supported by the controllers of the SCANBOOSTER™ family, as well as by the hardware platform SCANFLEX®.