USB JTAG Software for Testing PCBS

Posted by davinmolli on May 11th, 2016

Your familiarity with JTAG is because you have of your utilization of tools having a JTAG interface. JTAG is usually used by CPLDs and FPGAs to make their programming functions accessible and by processors to make their emulation/debug functions accessible.

The programming and debug tools that find an association with the best USB JTAG software uses one important aspect of the basic technology – the four signals of the JTAG communication convention, also known as Test Access Port (TAP). And these form allegiance with the standard IEEE 1149.1. This standard came into existence to provide a technique to test Printed Circuit Boards or PCBs. And the best thing about this standard is that it does the job of testing PCBs without requiring too much customization needed in functional test or the amount of physical access needed in bed-of-nails test. TAP is designed to use additional registers for the implementation of this testing method.

The Boundary Scan Register is one such register that is added particularly for JTAG testing. As the name alludes to, it has its cells between the pins and functional core, right at the boundary of the device. JTAG testing is often referred to as Boundary Scan as well.

Boundary scan cells have the capability of operating in two different modes. The first is the functional mode where they do not impact the operation. When they are in test mode, they affect a disconnection between the pins and the functional core. The boundary scan test is easier than conventional functional test because it doesn't require booting or device configuration after the pins are disconnected from the functionality of the device. JTAG eliminates the amount of physical access needed to test a PCB by monitoring and controlling every enabled signal.

This capability of boundary scan can be used in two different ways to test PCBS – connection testing, which provides good test coverage, especially in the case of short-circuit faults. The connection test checks the practical implementation of connections on the board, as mentioned in the design. It functions entirely on the capabilities of JTAG device and the nets and connections present on a board. The other way uses the  JTAG enabled device to interact with flash and DDR RAM (Non-JTAG devices).

As you can see, the USB JTAG software is quite capable of testing faults in PCBs. To access these qualities and make use of them to check printed circuit boards for faults, you can buy USB JTAG software online.

Author's Bio: The author is a blogger. This article is about USB JTAG software.
For more information visit : www.flynn.com