Feasibility of Testing Functional Interfaces using Boundary Scan
(2024) EITM02 20241Department of Electrical and Information Technology
- Abstract
- Before electronic products reach the market, Functional Circuit Testing (FCT) is an essential process to ensure performance and reliability. Traditional FCT requires developing dedicated testing firmware for each batch of products, which increases both development costs and time. This thesis proposes a testing method based on Boundary Scan, provides an alternative that eliminates the need for firmware development.
To validate the feasibility of Boundary Scan, this thesis selects the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) protocol as case study. As SPI is a widely used interface in electronic products, testing the SPI protocol through Boundary Scan provides an initial assessment of the potential for applying Boundary Scan in real FCT... (More) - Before electronic products reach the market, Functional Circuit Testing (FCT) is an essential process to ensure performance and reliability. Traditional FCT requires developing dedicated testing firmware for each batch of products, which increases both development costs and time. This thesis proposes a testing method based on Boundary Scan, provides an alternative that eliminates the need for firmware development.
To validate the feasibility of Boundary Scan, this thesis selects the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) protocol as case study. As SPI is a widely used interface in electronic products, testing the SPI protocol through Boundary Scan provides an initial assessment of the potential for applying Boundary Scan in real FCT scenarios.
This thesis uses two methods to implement Boundary Scan: one based on Open on-chip debugger (OpenOCD) software, and the other using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Boundary Scan is implemented on a NUCLEO-F722ZE development board to facilitate SPI communication with another identical board. A comparison is made between the communication speeds and overall test times. The results demonstrate that Boundary Scan can successfully perform SPI communication testing, and it achieves shorter total test time under smaller communication content size than the firmware-based method. (Less) - Popular Abstract
- Have you ever used electronic products? Today in 2024, electronic products are almost everywhere, from mobile phones, computers to TVs, mice and keyboards that we use every day. All these devices need to undergo rigorous testing before leaving the factory to ensure that there are no faults when you receive them. These testing processes are to ensure the reliability of the products.
One testing process is called functional circuit testing (FCT). In FCT, engineers must develop a dedicated testing firmware for each batch of products. This firmware is like an "examiner" of the device to check whether the product is working properly. But as the types and number of electronic products continue to increase, it becomes time-consuming and... (More) - Have you ever used electronic products? Today in 2024, electronic products are almost everywhere, from mobile phones, computers to TVs, mice and keyboards that we use every day. All these devices need to undergo rigorous testing before leaving the factory to ensure that there are no faults when you receive them. These testing processes are to ensure the reliability of the products.
One testing process is called functional circuit testing (FCT). In FCT, engineers must develop a dedicated testing firmware for each batch of products. This firmware is like an "examiner" of the device to check whether the product is working properly. But as the types and number of electronic products continue to increase, it becomes time-consuming and costly to develop testing firmware for each product.
So, is there a way to save the steps of firmware development? Can the test be completed without using test firmware? This is exactly this thesis is about: using Boundary Scan to optimize the testing process.
The focus of this thesis is the feasibility of Boundary Scan in Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) communication protocol testing. In this thesis, the SPI protocol was tested using Boundary Scan and compared it with traditional firmware testing methods. The results shows that in test scenarios with low data size transfer, Boundary Scan can not only complete the test reliably, but also reduce the test time. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9178003
- author
- Liu, Chengwen LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- EITM02 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- boundary scan, functional circuit testing, OpenOCD, Serial Peripheral Interface, test time
- report number
- LU/LTH-EIT 2024-1030
- language
- English
- id
- 9178003
- date added to LUP
- 2024-11-18 15:19:24
- date last changed
- 2024-11-18 15:19:24
@misc{9178003,
abstract = {{Before electronic products reach the market, Functional Circuit Testing (FCT) is an essential process to ensure performance and reliability. Traditional FCT requires developing dedicated testing firmware for each batch of products, which increases both development costs and time. This thesis proposes a testing method based on Boundary Scan, provides an alternative that eliminates the need for firmware development.
To validate the feasibility of Boundary Scan, this thesis selects the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) protocol as case study. As SPI is a widely used interface in electronic products, testing the SPI protocol through Boundary Scan provides an initial assessment of the potential for applying Boundary Scan in real FCT scenarios.
This thesis uses two methods to implement Boundary Scan: one based on Open on-chip debugger (OpenOCD) software, and the other using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Boundary Scan is implemented on a NUCLEO-F722ZE development board to facilitate SPI communication with another identical board. A comparison is made between the communication speeds and overall test times. The results demonstrate that Boundary Scan can successfully perform SPI communication testing, and it achieves shorter total test time under smaller communication content size than the firmware-based method.}},
author = {{Liu, Chengwen}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Feasibility of Testing Functional Interfaces using Boundary Scan}},
year = {{2024}},
}