Boundary Scan Support throughout the entire Product Life Cycle

25 March 2011 - GOEPEL electronic introduces the support of multi protocol interface chips from the British company Future Technology Devices International (FTDI) for their utilisation as native Boundary Scan controllers. The single-chip solutions with USB2.0 control will be used in the recently developed PicoTAP Boundary Scan controllers. Additionally, they can be included in customer designs to implement onboard system-level JTAG applications.

This compatibility enables the seamless migration of JTAG/Boundary Scan test, debug and programming procedures from the lab via production up to remote diagnostics and in-field test of the entire system.

“We have developed our new concept for utilising FTDI chips parallel to respective customer projects to address existing market needs from the very beginning”, says Thomas Wenzel, GOEPEL electronic’s managing director of the Boundary Scan Division. “The absolute compatibility between our hardware and the system implementations enables users to apply our complete software portfolio for project development and test execution as commercial off the shelf (COTS) solution throughout the entire product life cycle.”

“Our USB Hi-speed IC solutions with programmable multi protocol engine are able to cover various serial protocols at smallest space requirements making them cost-efficient and enabling a multitude of applications”, adds Ian Dunn, Engineering Manager (global) with FTDI. “By the available software support from GOEPEL electronic we expect an even faster adoption of our ICs in the area of system-level JTAG/Boundary Scan applications.”

The latest FTDI ICs FT2232H and FT4232H were utilised for qualification in GOEPEL electronic’s hardware solutions. Both feature a USB2.0 Hi-speed interface as well as two programmable Multi-Protocol Synchronous Serial Engines (MPSSE). Qualification of the recently introduced single port USB Hi-Speed device, the FT232H, is planned for the second quarter 2011. The FTDI IC configuration and control is taken over from the integrated JTAG/Boundary Scan development and execution environment SYSTEM CASCON. Allowing FTDI components to be included as any other native hardware. Furthermore, applications are cross-compatible to the SCANBOOSTER series and high-performance platform SCANFLEX controllers.