JTAG Defined | An Introduction to JTAG

by admin on August 11, 2008

JTAG What is it? JTAG is an acronym that stands for “Joint Test Action Group”. Group–in this case–was a group of vendors focused on problems found when testing electronic circuit boards. Key members included: TI, Intel and others. JTAG is the informal name often used to describe the standard that resulted from the work of [...]

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Welcome to this introduction to three key JTAG Standards. These standards are the most active and commonly used and of most practical value for anyone who wants to employ JTAG Boundary SCAN tools today. At the end of this post we will provide links to additional detail on each of these specifications. If you prefer [...]

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What is Boundary Scan JTAG

by admin on August 12, 2010

What do the terms: JTAG, Boundary Scan and IEEE 1149.1 mean? You have probably heard the terms: Boundary Scan JTAG IEEE 1149.1 But what do they mean and how did they come about? This post and video answers that question. Some History JTAG is an acronym for Joint Test Action Group. This group was a [...]

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JTAG Test

by admin on August 9, 2010

What is JTAG Testing? Testing with JTAG allows you to test printed circuit boards for manufacturing defects, functional failures and even program and configure devices like FPGAs, CPLDs and FLASH. So why use JTAG Boundary Scan testing? The key advantage of JTAG test over other test methods is that it requires a minimum number of [...]

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Prototype Circuit Board

by admin on April 25, 2010

Prototype Printed Circuit Boards are early versions of electronic circuits that need to be debugged and tested. Electronic product manufactures (OEMs) typically send the files product by their schematic capture package as the create the circuit design to a circuit board FAB or Prototype house for prototype pcb assembly. Often so-called quick turn PCB Fab [...]

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Boundary Scan Software

by admin on April 24, 2010

Boundary Scan Software is used to test printed circuit boards in electronic products such as cell phones, medical device and communication systems. Boundary Scan Software uses a JTAG Boundary Scan Hardware interface to communicate with a Unit Under Test or UUT. You can use Boundary Scan software to: Bring up Prototype circuit boards Configure Programmable [...]

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JTAG Pinout FPGA

by admin on July 20, 2009

JTAG  Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Pin out – “Standard (CES)” This standard configuration is typically used for FPGA (such as Xilinx) JTAG programming adapters. You can create a pinout to use our JTAG system using the description below. Pin Number                Signal name                  Signal Description 1                                      TCK                                   Test Clock Signal 2                                    Ground                             Ground 3                                    TDI                                     [...]

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JTAG Pinouts and Connectors for PowerPC

by admin on June 8, 2009

This page contains details on PowerPC JTAG Connector Pinouts. These Pinouts can be used to interface a JTAG ICE or Boundary Scan test Device to your PowerPC board PowerPC 52XX, 74XX, 7XX, 82XX, 83XX, 85XX JTAG Pin Signal Name 1 1  TDO JTAG Test Data Out 2 2 Not Used (QACK -7XX only) 3 3 [...]

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JTAG Pinout Xilinx Cable IV

by admin on June 8, 2009

The pin out below is for the 14-pin Xilinx Cable IV. Our XJLink can be used in place of this cable to program and configure Xilinx FPGAs and it can also be used to provide complete boundary scan testing for your board. 1 VGND   2 VREF 3 GND    4 TMS 5 GND    6 TCK 7 GND    8 [...]

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JTAG Connector Pinouts

by admin on June 8, 2009

This page is a resource for JTAG connectors. It contains information on JTAG connector: pin-outs, connector vendors, JTAG tool Pin outs, JTAG device Pinouts. This information can be used to help you create custom connectors to connect your JTAG hardware to our XJLink controller. Each week we will add new connector pin descriptions. Please let [...]

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JTAG Pinout Altera ByteBlaster II

by admin on June 8, 2009

The Altera ByteBlaster II pin out is shown below. The JTAG signal are show along with there pin numbers. Our XJLink JTAG controller hardware fully supports this pin out as well as many other standard programming and confoiguration cabled. Since our  XJLink controller can replace the BYteBlaster II cable For additional information on the cable, [...]

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Boundary Scan

by admin on August 14, 2008

Boundary Scan What is Boundary-Scan, What is it used for? Boundary Scan is used to test, program and debug printed circuit boards (PCBs). Let’s begin with a bit of history on why Boundary Scan came about. Why is Boundary Scan Needed Back in the late 80′s and early 90′s, several developments in Circuit Board technology [...]

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JTAG Boundary-Scan Vs. JTAG Emulation (ICE)

by admin on August 4, 2007

One question that I often hear is: “What’s difference between JTAG Boundary-Scan Test and JTAG Emulation or a JTAG ICE?” First off, these two methods share common functions such as: hardware bring-up, device programming and even some basic hardware test functionality. The big difference is that test systems are designed to do extensive hardware testing [...]

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Design for Test (DFT)

by admin on July 12, 2007

When designing new hardware that employs Ball Grid Array (BGA) devices, it is critical to adhere to design for test (DFT) guidelines. Provided that you have JTAG enabled devices on your board, DFT guidelines allow you to design your board in such a way that the highest possible percentage of your hardware is tested. Many [...]

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