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Corelis’ Boundary-Scan Test Products Solve Difficult Prototype
Problems at Vanguard Managed Solutions
Saves Countless Hours
of Non-Productive Debug Work
Vanguard Managed Solutions (VanguardMS) has been designing,
developing, and deploying innovative and cost-effective
networking solutions for over 40 years. During that period
VanguardMS has established an enviable track record by focusing
on “time-to-market” as the most critical element in successfully
delivering complete managed-network solutions to meet the needs
of its hundreds of customers around the world. In recent years
VanguardMS has relied on Corelis’ ScanExpress Boundary-Scan test
systems to shorten its development cycles and bring new products
to market sooner by improving the productivity of its engineers
in the development and debugging of prototype units.
Scott Dextradeur is an MS Production Test Engineer at
VanguardMS whose responsibilities include the testing of
production-run assemblies. An exceptional case was recently
presented to Scott when a group of R&D engineers came to him
urgently requesting help to “bring-up” a CPU-based prototype
board.
The initial problem with the
bring-up of the prototype board was that the CPU would not
properly boot. As all test and development engineers know
from first-hand experience this phase of board prototyping
can be both frustrating and time consuming. Scott
immediately connected the prototype to his Corelis ScanExpress
system and ran Corelis’ Boundary-Scan tests. Immediately the
ScanExpress found a pull-down resistor net shorted to power.
When Scott informed the R&D engineers of the short, they
attempted to inspect the board with a microscope but were
unable to visually identify the short. Trusting that the
Corelis ScanExpress system is able to detect electrical faults
that are not visible to the trained eye, even under a
microscope, the engineers decided to replace the resistor.
The prototype booted, the error was corrected, and the R&D
engineers were able to quickly move forward with their
development work. Later,
the R&D engineers returned to Scott with another difficult
problem. This time the SDRAM on the prototype was functioning
erratically. Using his Corelis’ ScanExpress tools Scott quickly
ran a memory cluster test that located a bad memory cell. In
this case, the results of the test indicated that the failure
was due not to an assembly defect but to a bad memory component.
Initially Scott was reluctant to replace the critical memory
component and decided first to contact the Corelis customer
support group to gain a better understanding of exactly how a
memory cluster test is accomplished. After receiving a timely
and unambiguous response, Scott realized that the only probable
cause for the failure was the bad memory component, as indicated
by the ScanExpress system. When the failing memory component was
replaced, the failure disappeared. Once again the timely use of
Corelis tools removed a roadblock that was preventing the R&D
engineers from moving forward with their prototype development.
“Once our R&D engineers had
experienced the success of using the Corelis tools to find quick
solutions to tough problems that blocked their development
progress, they became very enthusiastic about utilizing
boundary-scan to an even greater extent in future designs”, said
Scott Dextradeur. “The real clincher for us was when we were
able to use the ScanExpress to detect a solder short under a BGA
device which our contract manufacture had earlier examined with
an x-ray but failed to find. Only after we detected the exact
location of the fault using boundary-scan was the CM able to
retest the board with x-ray and confirm the solder smear.”
“It’s foreseen that the
development schedules at VanguardMS will remain tight throughout
the end of the year” continued Dextradeur. “The R&D engineers
are more than happy to discover a tool, such as the Corelis
ScanExpress system, that can help keep them from spending nights
and weekends tracking down these kinds of difficult board
bring-up problems. Our engineers confirmed that the defects they
found on this prototype board are exactly the kinds of faults
that are extremely difficult and time-consuming to find by
traditional means. The added cost and time incurred from testing
with conventional tools could mean missing a narrow
window-of-opportunity to market a new and leading product,
something that Vanguard Managed Solutions cannot concede to.”
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