ASSET Internet-based controller enables global test

RICHARDSON, USA: The new Remote Instrumentation Controller family from ASSET InterTech is the industry’s first to apply JTAG/boundary scan tests directly over the Internet. The first member of the family, the RIC-1000 controller, connects locally to a circuit board or other unit under test (UUT) and remotely over Ethernet to an ASSET ScanWorks embedded instrumentation platform.

ASSET is the leading supplier of open tools for embedded instrumentation.

“The World Wide Web changed the way we live and work. On a smaller scale, we believe that our Remote Instrumentation Controller family will do the same sort of thing for design validation, test and debug,” said Alan Sguigna, vice president of sales and marketing for ASSET. “We’ve added another dimension to test by placing it outside of place and time. And, in terms of cost-effectiveness, the RIC family gives both large and small companies the ability to pinpoint their human and test technology resources wherever and whenever they are needed.”

The RIC-1000 incorporates local intelligence and implements a client/server architecture in relation to a remote ScanWorks station. Each Remote Instrumentation Controller can be assigned an Internet Protocol (IP) address. As a result, a test engineer at a ScanWorks station in the United States could apply tests via a Remote Instrumentation Controller over the Internet on a circuit board being manufactured in a factory in Asia, for example.

The need for a ScanWorks test station running on a personal computer and other equipment local to the Remote Instrumentation Controller and the circuit board being tested is eliminated. In fact, one ScanWorks station can access and apply tests through any number of Remote Instrumentation Controllers located anywhere in the world.