Boundary-scan development software continues to advance
(Product News, 03 Jul 2007 )
JTAG Technologies continues to drive the boundary-scan industry forward with another release of its flagship development tool, JTAG ProVision. Already setting the pace in comprehensiveness and ease-of-use, ProVision now encompasses even more functionality within its highly graphical user interface.
Developers will now be able to evaluate their designs for boundary-scan test coverage ithin the ProVision environment. Precise quantitative results for testability -- both theoretical coverage and the actual achieved level -- are presented on a net-basis and pin-basis. The theoretical or maximum attainable coverage is used prior to manufacturing to determine if DFT goals have been met by the design. Actual coverage allows the test developer to determine if the potential coverage has been achieved by the boundary-scan implementation.
With the new release, ProVision links directly to JTAG Visualizer, giving instant schematic and layout views of any pin or net. Areas of interest are highlighted in color, allowing the designer to rapidly understand testability results. The benefit is reduced time to achieve DFT objectives with on-screen visualization replacing the use of paper copies of schematics and layouts.
ProVision's device library has been expanded and now includes models for over 10,000 non-boundary-scan parts. Furthermore, user-generated IBIS and ABEL models can be handled directly by the tool, and the built-in editor allows a user to easily create additional models. As the user library expands, it is always available for re-use on subsequent projects, minimizing the application development cycle.
Other new features of the latest ProVision include test generation of clusters of non-scan devices spanning multiple boards and the ability to single-step test execution for debugging and verification. As with previous releases, JTAG ProVision remains fully compatible with the prior "Classic" development tools as well as with all of JTAG Technologies production systems. The latest release is available free of charge to customers with valid maintenance contracts..
