[SJTAG]

 The System JTAG Working Group

Minutes of Weekly Meeting, 2009-03-16

Meeting called to order at 10:35 AM EDT

1. Roll Call

Eric Cormack
Ian McIntosh
Peter Horwood
Patrick Au
Tim Pender
Carl Walker
Brad Van Treuren
Harrison Miles

Excused:
Heiko Ehrenberg
Adam Ley

2. Review and approve previous minutes:

3/9/2009 minutes:

  • Updated draft circulated on 11th March:
  • [Ian] Tim, Adam questioned whether the frequencies I recorded for your comment towards the end of 4c should have been separated by several orders of magnitude: Did I record you correctly?
  • [Tim] Yes, that is right.
  • Tim moved to approve, Brad seconded, no objections

3. Review old action items

  • Adam proposed we cover the following at the next meeting:
    • Establish consensus on goals and constraints
    • What are we trying to achieve?
    • What restrictions are we faced with?
  • Establish whether TRST needs to be addressed as requirements in the ATCA specification if it is not going to be managed globally (All)
  • Adam review ATCA standard document for FRU's states
  • Patrick contact Cadence for EDA support person.
  • All to consider what data items are missing from Data Elements diagram
  • All: do we feel SJTAG is requiring a new test language to obtain the information needed for diagnostics or is STAPL/SVF sufficient?
    see also Gunnar's presentation, in particular the new information he'd be looking for in a test language (http://files.sjtag.org/Ericsson-Nov2006/STAPL-Ideas.pdf)
  • Adam: (continue) revise wording of section 5 - Ongoing
  • Carl W/Andrew: Set up conference call to organise review of Vol. 3 - Ongoing
    • [Harrison] I've written something on small form factors, but real work keeps getting in the way.
  • Andrew: Make contact with VXI Consortium/Charles Greenberg. - Ongoing
    • [Harrison] Andrew hasn't made that contact yet.
  • Ian/Brad: Draft "straw man" Volume 4 for review - Ongoing
  • All: Review "Role of Languages" in White Paper Volume 4 - Ongoing
  • All: Consider structure/content of survey - Ongoing

4. Discussion Topics

  1. White Paper
    • [Ian] I don't think we need to waste much time on this: From looking at the wiki and the forums, there would not appear to have been any progress on any of the sections. Can anyone advise differently?
    • {No response}

  2. 2009 Survey
    • [Ian] Following up on Heiko's suggestion, I mailed out a spreadsheet, tabulating the questions we have so far against the "roles". We really need to move on and get the question list built up, as this survey is probably key to determining the scope of what is in our "dot 0" and what should be left for future SJTAG extensions.
    • [Harrison] The only thing I'd raise is that there is some overlap within the questions and with the iNEMI survey.
    • [Ian] Overlap isn't a problem as long as it doesn't confuse people and cause misleading responses.
    • [Harrison] It may be possible to piggy back on the iNEMI activity.
    • [Brad] We need to tighten our focus, and the survey can help us to do that.
    • [Patrick] I'm a bit worried about the format: This can take quite a bit of time to fill in
    • [Harrison] I guess the intent is to have this in some kind of web page?
    • [Ian] Yes, that's right.
    • [Harrison] So like the iNEMI survey, we use the spreadsheet to get a storyboard and then convert to an online format.
    • [Ian] That's exactly right. It's pretty much what we did with last year's survey. Brad you had an idea to sort questions into categories?
    • [Brad] Logistically, I thought we could decide on some high level categories then partition the work of preparing questions out to people who know about those categories.
    • [Patrick] I guess you're aiming at Design Engineers, Test Engineers and Systems Engineers.
    • [Brad] It's really the roles that people perform, from the list at the top of the grid.
    • [Ian] The idea of the grid was to suggest which questions were appropriate to each role. People may see themselves in more than one role, so they would get an aggregate set of questions. It may actually turn out that roles can be merged for our purposes.
    • [Harrison] I think you need to add Product Manager: That's one category that is often overlooked. They drive the roadmap of the business, and often create the budgets.
    • [Patrick] What about Architects?
    • [Harrison] I think they often get buried. The Product Manager owns the project and has to prove that the job will get done. May sometimes be some influence from Marketing.
    • [Peter] Will they be interested? What will they know about SJTAG?
    • [Harrison] Yes. They may not know that this technology means you need certain pads in certain places, but they will be expected understand the capabilities of the technologies in use.
    • [Brad] We're seeing requirements coming from the customer asking for things like JTAG BIST.
    • [Harrison] That's likely driven as a result of them starting to see feedback on problems from the next level down. In many cases 50% of returns are showing as No Fault Found.
    • [Ian] OK, we wanted to group the questions into categories. Brad, you'd assigned categories to the questions you'd written.
    • [Brad] Yes, and I sent out another category for Architecture.
    • [Ian] I haven't seen that yet.
    • [Harrison] I think one thing you want is Remote Monitoring
    • [Tim] Is that a Use Case?
    • [Harrison] It is certainly a use that has real applications. A remote wireless base station can use JTAG to monitor potential failures. It can also be used to relay nonfailure data, such as data on network overloading, allowing a second unit to be deployed in that area if required.
    • [Brad] There's also the aspect of distribution: We had an example of a radio unit up to 200km away from the base station, but they were part of one system. You have both distribution and remote monitoring there.
    • [Brad] Maybe we need to take a step back and look at this from the perspective of the Use Cases.
    • [Harrison] ATCA is another example.
    • [Brad] The original SJTAG discussion were scoped for telecomms; JTAG wasn't include in ATCA but it did get into microTCA and there are now discussions on adding JTAG to ATCA.
    • [Harrison] ATCA reacted to PCI and compactPCI having all sorts of issues around faults and recovery.
    • [Brad] Yes, redundancy and controlled recovery.
    • [Harrison] Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are the other group we need to be aware of. Along with small form factor, which are basically distributed systems, these represent the largest growth areas.
    • [Ian] So how do we move forward from here?
    • [Harrison] Add Product Manager to our list. Look at some real Use Cases.
    • [Brad] We need to flesh out some theoretical or virtual systems; identify the data associated with the Use Case; identify the interactions. For example, does the Use Case have an applicability only at the board level or is there behaviour that applies at the system level? Show the hardware elements, etc.; just block diagrams.
    • [Harrison] I'll start on the path of some applications I know. {ACTION}
    • [Brad] I can look at BIST and POST; they're related. {ACTION}
    • [Ian] I'll have a go at Environmental Stress Test. {ACTION}
    • [Tim] Sounds like we are focusing questions around the use cases: However the area that really needs to be identified early is the architecture. The architecture makes all the use cases possible. Brad recently added some questions to the survey on architecture. That is good; it made me start thinking more about embedded application and whether you have Master/Slave or multiple Masters and will a 5 wire bus be sufficient.
    • [Brad] How we deal with the buses will determine the usefulness of the standard for many people.
    • [Harrison] It's no different from 1687. You need to define the ports, then define the port behaviour.

  3. Impact on SJTAG of 1149.7
    • [Ian] I had wanted to talk about how 1149.7 might influence the architecture of boards and systems, but we're out of time for this week. Tim's post asked about buffering at a board edge, but that maybe opens up some other questions about planning for 1149.7.
    • [Patrick] Can we discuss this on 30th? I can't make next week's meeting, but I'd like to be part of that discussion.
    • [Ian] OK. There was no particular urgency.
    • [Brad] The ballot for dot 7 has been extended to 2nd April 2009.

5. Schedule next meeting

Schedule for March 2009:
Monday Mar. 23, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT (14:30 GMT)
Monday Mar. 30, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT (15:30 BST)

Schedule for April 2009:
Monday Apr. 6, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT
Monday Apr. 13, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT
Monday Apr. 20, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT
Monday Apr. 27, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT

Patrick cannot attend Mar. 23.

Apr. 13 is a Bank Holiday in England: Patrick and Peter cannot attend.

6. Any other business

  • [Ian] I'd like to return to the Operating Procedures and try to close that out, but moving forward with the survey seems to need to take priority for now.

7. Review new action items

  • Harrison: Virtual system exploiting Configuration/Tuning/Instrumentation and Root Cause Analysis/Failure Mode Analysis Use Cases.
  • Brad: Virtual system exploiting POST and BIST Use Cases.
  • Ian: Virtual system exploiting Environmental Stress Test Use Cases.

8. Adjourn

Moved to adjourn at 11:37 AM EDT by Peter, seconded by Tim.

Respectfully submitted,
Ian McIntosh

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The SJTAG Initiative is "work-in-progress" and the views and opinions expressed here are subject to change without prior notice.