COMPASS Announces First Complete ASIC Self-Test Solution; COMPASS Licenses ScanBIST Technology from BNR.SAN JOSE San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 22, 1995--COMPASS Design Automation, Inc., a leader in electronic design automation (EDA (1) (Electronic Design Automation) Using the computer to design, lay out, verify and simulate the performance of electronic circuits on a chip or printed circuit board. ) tools and libraries, Monday announced the availability of the first test synthesis solution to automate the creation of a complete on-chip self-test architecture for complex ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced "a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. designs. The new technology from COMPASS, incorporating ScanBIST technology from Bell Northern Research, is the first design-for-test software to move all manufacturing and diagnostic tests onto the chip itself. This solution reduces or eliminates the need for costly test hardware on the ASIC production floor and in the field. "The move to deep submicron technologies is pushing ASIC design to higher gate count and clock frequencies, which, in turn, increase the challenge of achieving high testability," said Dieter Mezger, president of COMPASS. "Clearly, current design methods, testability methods and hardware testers themselves are no longer adequate, requiring a more innovative design-for-test approach. By leveraging COMPASS' existing core of test technology, in partnership with Bell Northern Research, we can offer the most advanced test solution available today. This underscores our leadership position in supporting the complex testability requirements of deep submicron ASIC designers." This announcement follows a significant sales and licensing agreement with Bell Northern Research (BNR BNR Bulgarian National Radio BNR Banca Nationala a României (National Bank of Romania) BNR Biological Nutrient Removal (sewage treatment) BNR Bell Northern Research BNR Body Not Recovered BNR Big Nerd Ranch ), located in Ottawa, Canada, for test automation software and technology. Under terms of the agreement, signed December 1994, COMPASS has licensed BNR's proprietary ScanBIST technology for use in custom and commercial test solutions. Additionally, the multi-level accord, valued at more than $1 million, calls for BNR to purchase several seats of COMPASS' suite of test tools, integrated with ScanBIST technology, to automate BNR's ASIC test development procedures. Commenting on the selection of COMPASS' test technology, Terry Thomas, director of Advanced Systems Technology at BNR stated, "Our corporate quality and reliability goals are driving us from chip-level testability to full-system self-test. We were looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a test automation vendor that had the technology and the expertise to accommodate the complexity of our test requirements. Following a detailed evaluation of products from the leading test vendors, we selected COMPASS based on the strength of its existing products and its ability to deliver a customized solution built around BNR's proprietary technology." COMPASS' Suite of Test Tools The new custom test solution will be based on COMPASS' test synthesis tools, which continue to provide the industry's most advanced support for insertion and integration of ASIC test architectures. Along with the new addition of ScanBIST technology, COMPASS supports boundary scan See scan technology. boundary scan - The use of scan registers to capture state from device input and output pins. IEEE Standard 1149.1-1990 describes the international standard implementation (sometimes called JTAG after the Joint Test Action Group which began the , internal scan, built-in self-test A built-in self-test (BIST) mechanism within an integrated circuit (IC) is a function which verifies all or a portion of the internal functionality of the IC. For example, a BIST mechanism is provided in advanced fieldbus systems to verify functionality. (BIST BIST - Built-in Self Test ), and embedded core isolation, and integrates all of these architectures through the boundary scan TAP controller. Automatic test pattern generation ATPG (acronym for both Automatic Test Pattern Generation and Automatic Test Pattern Generator) is an electronic design automation method/technology used to find an input (or test) sequence that, when applied to a digital and vector composition round out the synthesis of a complete ASIC manufacturing or diagnostic test capability. To support board- and system-level test development, COMPASS provides the automatic generation of boundary scan design language (BSDL (Boundary Scan Description Language) An IEEE language used to describe structures for boundary scan testing. See scan technology. ) description. The COMPASS suite of test tools work with any commercially available synthesis and simulation tools. ScanBIST Technology The ScanBIST architecture developed by BNR creates an on-chip logic self-test capability. This technique utilizes linear feedback shift registers A linear feedback shift register (LFSR) is a shift register whose input bit is a linear function of its previous state. The only linear functions of single bits are xor and inverse-xor; thus it is a shift register whose input bit is driven by the exclusive-or (xor) of some (LFSR LFSR Linear Feedback Shift Register (cryptography) ) driving internal scan chains to achieve high fault coverage. The architecture is controlled through the boundary scan TAP controller and can support single- or multiple-frequency designs. The test can be run at system clock speed, providing delay path testing as well as standard fault tests. "ScanBIST technology perfectly complements our existing memory BIST capability to create the complete ASIC self-test architecture called for by today's testability requirements," said Terry Strickland, product marketing manager for simulation and test at COMPASS. "High-reliability systems manufacturers are looking for ways to reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of manufacturing and diagnostic tests, and the new COMPASS test solution will provide both." COMPASS is providing custom test solutions that incorporate ScanBIST technology today and will provide commercial products that incorporate ScanBIST in the second half of 1995. All other COMPASS test tools are available today with pricing beginning at $40,000. COMPASS Design Automation is a leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA) tools and libraries for designing deep submicron application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and application-specific standard products (ASSPs). The company supplies a complete set of tools for silicon implementation as well as front-end design and provides Foundry Flexible ASIC libraries, memory and datapath compilers, and library development tools. COMPASS is headquartered in San Jose, California San Jose (IPA: /ˌsænhoʊˈzeɪ/) is the third-largest city in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Santa Clara County. , and develops, markets and sells its products worldwide. -0- Note to Editors: Foundry Flexible is a trademark of COMPASS Design Automation, Inc. ScanBIST is a trademark of Bell Northern Research. CONTACT: COMPASS Design Automation Jeff Lewis, 408/434-7909 Tsantes & Associates Diane Orr, 408/452-8700 |
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