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A week at ITC

Alan Sguigna

November 12, 2010
5:26 am

Last week, ASSET unveiled the first toolkit for IEEE 1687 at the International Test Conference (ITC) in Austin, TX. ITC is the cornerstone of “Test Week”, a premiere technical event which addresses the challenges of providing high-quality, cost-effective test solutions for chips, boards and systems...

High Speed I/O Testing on In-Circuit Test

Alan Sguigna

November 4, 2010
6:19 pm

Because ASSET is a pioneer in the use of non-intrusive solutions for validation, test and debug (using what we call “embedded instrumentation”), we often get asked if legacy testers like In-Circuit Test (ICT) machines can be used for the testing of high-speed I/O...

Rooting out impossible bugs

Alan Sguigna

September 26, 2010
2:55 pm

The use of effective embedded diagnostics to identify failures in today’s high-availability systems becomes more critical as semiconductor and board technologies increase in speed and integration. But many OEMs seem to be overlooking this vital aspect of their products’ post-sales operation...

In-Circuit Test—heavy metal blues

Alan Sguigna

September 25, 2010
8:16 pm

Once upon a time, circa mid-1980's, surface mount technology (SMT) was becoming all the rage and it was widely reported that in-circuit test (ICT) was doomed! But lo, ICT had (at least) nine lives and would not die - the purveyors of "heavy metal" kept (keep) coming up with new innovations to keep the heart of the beast ticking…

Ircona, IBIST, and a great Signal Integrity story

Alan Sguigna

September 14, 2010
5:36 am

Ircona, a company specializing in high-speed processor-based designs and BIOS customization for partners including Phoenix Technologies, has recently used our Intel® Interconnect Built-In Self Test (IBIST) tool to troubleshoot some very elusive signal integrity issues on a high-end server design...

Who will use IEEE 1687?

Larry Osborn

September 14, 2010
4:38 am

The IEEE 1687 standard resonates with engineers and managers, no matter which part of the semiconductor-based product lifecycle they are involved with, because it either solves a technical problem, it provides a cost advantage, it reduces the amount of work, or it enables automation of some (onerous) task…

No Trouble Found?

Alan Sguigna

September 1, 2010
11:33 am

In my earlier blog on Debugging Watchdog Timeouts I mentioned the dreaded No Trouble Found (NTF) problem. NTF is a huge cost to companies and is extremely difficult to quantify and to address. Something as simple as an errant wedding ring can cost companies millions of dollars. Let me explain…

QPI Is Cool (Part II)

Glenn Woppman

August 20, 2010
8:12 pm

For those working with the new Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) high speed bus, there's a new book on the market called “Mastering High Performance Multiprocessor Signaling” by Dave Coleman and Michael Mirmak. This will become the "Bible" on high speed buses. Here are the details...

What is IEEE 1687?

Michael Johnson

August 20, 2010
6:43 pm

This is the first of a series of blogs answering the question, “what is IEEE 1687”. Subsequent blogs will cover the topics “who uses IEEE 1687”, “what are the advantages of using IEEE 1687 (why use IEEE 1687)”, and “how to use IEEE 1687.”

Debugging watchdog timeouts

Alan Sguigna

August 11, 2010
2:59 am

Watchdog timeouts occur in crashed or hung systems when the main processor no longer sends a heartbeat to an ancillary service processor. These can occur in high- and low-end systems, anywhere from routers to servers to cell phones. Debugging them can be difficult…

A week at ITC

High Speed I/O Testing on In-Circuit Test

Rooting out impossible bugs

In-Circuit Test—heavy metal blues

Ircona, IBIST, and a great Signal Integrity story

Who will use IEEE 1687?

No Trouble Found?

QPI Is Cool (Part II)

What is IEEE 1687?

Debugging watchdog timeouts

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