JTAG introduces ‘PMBusProg’ for ISP of power management devices

JTAG Technologies is offering Power Management Bus (PMBus) IC programming solution that supports devices from leading vendors Linear Technologies and TI.

Peter van den Eijnden, MD of JTAG Technologies, explains some of the background of PMBusProg. “While the individual IC vendors generally offer their own solution for programming parts ‘in-system’ these are seldom robust enough for the factory environment nor are they ‘integratable’ into existing board test systems. By developing PMBusProg we were responding to customer’s demands who were looking for a fast convenient solution that could run on existing hardware and be integrated into existing test platforms. “

PMBusProg is said to run on all DataBlaster controllers from JTAG Technologies and can be used to access PMBus pins via local JTAG (boundary-scan) compliant devices or directly from an external DIOS (Digital IO Scan) module.

SCIP programming solutions now been expanded to program other protocols such as those used by Microchip PIC, Freescale HCS08 and now PMBus. Where necessary the SCIP family employs Scan Configurable Interface Logic (SCIL) hardware interface modules. These are ‘swappable’ interfaces that can convert a JTAG hardware controller into a protocol-specific device programmer or tester.

Peter van den Eijnden sees SCIP not as a single product but an array of support options that users can select to satisfy their device programming requirements. Use of SCIP functions allows customer to get more from their JTAG tools investment and increase the board coverage.