JTAG system test in a MicroTCA world

Abstract

The telecommunications industry has developed new system architectures through the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) organization. These are the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) platforms that consist of the ATCA, ATCA300, Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC), and MicroTCA specifications. Unfortunately, only the AMC and MicroTCA specification directly addresses testability using an IEEE Std 1149.1 (JTAG) compatible interface. This paper will address the system test facility specified in the MicroTCA specification for testing the incorporated AMC modules as well as the MicroTCA Carrier Hub (MCH) controllers. Access to the individual AMC JTAG chains is provided using a JTAG Switch Module that provides a programmable star architecture in the system.

Firmware Upgrade in xTCA Systems

“…When the system is composed of several boards, making a large chain of all programmable devices is not practical. For VME systems the Module Test and Maintenance Bus [10] is a standard way of accessing JTAG chains of individual boards even today [11].…”

Design of a high performance FPGA based fault injector for real-time safety-critical systems

“…Due to the common occurrence of JTAG interface in current devices, it gained a lot of attention as a fault injection technique. Study [5] has shown that Scan Chain implemented fault injection (SCIFI) utilizing BSC can be used for dependability validation of embedded computer systems , which encouraged further research in this area [3,6]- [8]. Unfortunately, each one of the respective techniques had its shortcomings: introduction of additional hardware into the system [6,8], communication overhead and software intrusiveness [7], or pre-programmed static fault injection sequence [3].…”