BSML: an application of XML to enhance boundary scan test data transportability

The IEEE 1149.1 standard has successfully defined the rules of boundary scan design implementation. This has served as the catalyst for commercial companies to develop boundary scan test generation tools. Except for Serial Vector Format (SVF), an industry standard practice for expressing test vectors, each commercial offering uses proprietary formats for the data that is used to debug and diagnosis failures that are detected during test execution. This data tends to be in a form that is compatible only with a specific target test system. The introduction of XML (Extensible Markup Language) offers a solution for boundary scan test data that not only standardizes the expression of key information, but also enables this information to be retargeted easily through the use of XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) style sheets. The objective of this paper is to show how XML can be applied to boundary scan test data as a way to enable this data to be transported to applications and test systems that utilize this information.