ARM
www.xjtag.com
www.xjtag.com
712
To support the company’s SoC IP,
ARM has developed a strong base of
development tools, software and
hardware products. For example, its
range of RealView® development
solutions are ideal systems for
customers prototyping ARM
processor-based products and are
suitable for architecture and CPU
evaluation, hardware and software
design, and ASIC emulation. These
development platforms are typically
highly complex, high density, twelve-
to-sixteen layer board designs,
containing multiple high pin-count ball
grid array (BGA) devices including
processors, ASICs, FPGAs and CPLDs.
“Our development platforms
are used extensively across the
business and are designed to deliver
significant risk reduction and faster
time-to-market benefits to our
Partners,” said Spencer Saunders,
Engineering Manager, Platforms,
Development Systems, ARM.
“With tens of thousands of pins
on each board, we recognized that
it would not be possible to validate
these circuits in a commercially
realistic timescale without the use
of a boundary scan test system.”
After evaluating the different
competitive options, the engineering
team at ARM’s development facility
in Cambridge, UK, selected the XJTAG
boundary scan development system.
The XJTAG system has enabled ARM
to speed up the process of debug
and test, get test coverage up to
around the 90 percent mark and to
significantly improve production yields.
“XJTAG offers incredible power,
performance and versatility and can
test both boundary scan (JTAG) and
cluster (non-JTAG) devices including
BGA and chip scale packages,” said
Andy Evans, Senior Product
Engineer, Platforms, Development
Systems, ARM.
“XJTAG is easy to use, the test
scripts for non-JTAG devices follow
the familiar top-down design flow, and
these test scripts are device-centric,
making them re-usable from project
to project, which saves ARM an awful
lot of time.”
ARM is currently using XJTAG on
its latest generation of RealView
platform baseboards, and, because
of its built-in design-for-test (DFT)
functionality, it has been used right
from the very beginning of the design
process to help improve the design
and reduce respins.
“XJTAG’s DFT capability is
extremely powerful and saves us a
great deal of time, as it automatically
handles any netlist changes by
adapting to the new circuit
connections, thereby avoiding the
time-consuming process of manually
picking through the netlist for errors,”
said Spencer Saunders.
“In addition, XJTAG’s powerful
circuit visualization tool provides us
with a simple graphical view of the
state of all JTAG pins across the
multiple BGA devices and enables
us to quickly pinpoint specific faults
on our boards and speed up the
whole debug process.”
ARM and RealView are registered trademarks of ARM
Limited. All other brands or product names are the
property of their respective holders. “ARM” is used to
represent ARM Holdings plc; its operating company
ARM Limited; and the regional subsidiaries ARM INC.;
ARM KK; ARM Korea Ltd.; ARM Taiwan; ARM France
SAS; ARM Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.; ARM
Belgium N.V.; AXYS Design Automation Inc.; AXYS
GmbH; ARM Embedded Solutions Pvt. Ltd.; and ARM
Physical IP, Inc.; and ARM Norway AS.
“
The XJTAG boundary scan system is an extremely powerful,
versatile and cost-effective product which has enabled ARM to
improve and speed up the process of debugging and testing its
RealView development tools. With XJTAG, we are now close to
meeting our target for 90 percent test coverage and ten-minutes-
per-board production test, but we also have a boundary scan
system that allows tests to be recorded, refined and repeatedly
re-used throughout the development cycle both by our
engineering team and our contract manufacturing partners.”
ARM® technology lies at the heart of advanced digital products from
mobile, home and enterprise solutions to embedded and emerging
applications. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 16/32-bit
RISC microprocessors, data engines, graphics processors, digital
libraries, embedded memories, peripherals, software and development
tools, as well as analogue functions and high-speed connectivity products.
ARM Selects XJTAG
® for Debug and Test of its RealView Development Tools
“
ARM, the world’s leading semiconductor intellectual property (IP) supplier, has reduced the time and cost of
developing its range of RealView development tools by using the XJTAG boundary scan development system to
improve and speed up the process of debugging and testing its high density, multi-layer development boards.”
Company
ARM Holdings
Nature of
World’s leading semiconductor
business
IP supplier
Main
16/32-bit RISC microprocessors,
products
data engines, graphics processors,
digital libraries, embedded memories,
software and development tools,
peripherals, analogue functions and
high-speed connectivity products
Locations
ARM has facilities/offices in
North America, Europe,
the Middle East, Far East and India
Employees
Approx. 1659
Revenues
£263.3 million (2006)
Web site
www.arm.com
Andy Evans, Senior Product Engineer at ARM
opinion
Spencer Saunders
Engineering Manager
Platform, Development Systems
ARM