ASSET partners with Flextronics to accelerate adoption of IEEE P1687 embedded instrumentation standard

RICHARDSON, USA: ASSET InterTech, a leading supplier of open tools for embedded instrumentation, has partnered with Flextronics, a leading electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider, to accelerate the adoption of the new IEEE P1687 Internal JTAG (IJTAG) standard.

Once it is ratified next year, the IEEE P1687 IJTAG standard will specify an industry-accepted open architecture and interfacing mechanisms for instrumentation that is embedded into semiconductor chips, simplifying the use of these embedded instruments to validate, test and debug chips, circuit boards and systems.

Most of the instruments currently embedded in chips are limited to a specific purpose, such as chip debug. The IEEE P1687 IJTAG standard will enable efficient use of embedded instruments throughout a product’s entire life-cycle, including circuit board validation during design, board test in manufacturing and maintenance diagnostics in the field.

IEEE P1687 IJTAG is based on another standard, the IEEE 1149.1 boundary-scan standard, which is often referred to as JTAG after the Joint Test Action Group that initiated its development.

The Flextronics Center of Excellence in Austin, Texas, will collaborate with ASSET on the development of tools supporting the IEEE P1687 IJTAG standard for ASSET’s ScanWorks® platform for embedded instruments.

In addition, the companies will undertake joint marketing activities on the life-cycle value of deploying validation and test strategies based on IEEE P1687. The two companies have plans for a variety of activities in the marketplace, such as conducting seminars to educate engineers, authoring joint whitepapers, presenting technical papers on IJTAG technology at industry conferences and compiling application notes to accelerate the adoption of the IJTAG standard.

ASSET will provide beta versions of its ScanWorks IJTAG tools to the Flextronics IJTAG Center of Excellence, where these tools will be exercised in a range of scenarios to simulate deployment in a production line for a variety of electronic products and systems.

“We are very excited to team up with Flextronics on this very important endeavor and we look forward to collaborating with them,” said Glenn Woppman, president and CEO of ASSET InterTech.

“EMS companies like Flextronics are at the center point in the process that delivers systems to market. On one side, the EMS faces chip vendors and on the other they face system suppliers. So, it is quite strategic for the adoption of the IJTAG standard when a company with the critical importance of a Flextronics decides to throw its weight behind a standard like this.

“Both companies will gain from this relationship. Our ScanWorks IJTAG toolkit will certainly benefit from the insight of Flextronics’ experts and they will be able to further their knowledge of this new technology.”