In-System Emulation Technology powers Energy Micro EFM32 Gecko MCU with Serial Wire Debug (SWD) from ARM

“Perspectively, we expect a wider spread of low pin count test and debug interfaces. The now available VarioTAP® support of ARM’s Serial Wire Debug accesses is not only another strategically important 2-wire interface but increases our solutions’ future reliability“, says Thomas Wenzel, Managing Director of GOEPEL electronic’s JTAG Boundary Scan Division. “Combining Energy Micro’s innovative MCU with our unique VarioTAP® technology, users are able to validate, test and program in particular power-saving products for applications such as Smart Metering, Medical Devices, Security and additional energy intensive markets even faster.”

“We are very pleased to see the advanced technology from GOEPEL electronic being available for our EFM32 microcontroller series”, says Øyvind Janbu, CTO at Energy Micro. “The VarioTAP® models allow a seamless production flow that will reduce our customers’ production cost and time to market.”

Users of the new VarioTAP® models for the EFM32 Gecko series are now able to initially execute the functional emulation test for all board components and subsequently program embedded Flash. This procedure takes only few seconds. It is executed in a consistent run, provides extremely high fault coverage and requires only one hardware platform.
The Boundary Scan signals or SWD signals are consistently controlled by the recently introduced SCANFLEX® hardware TIC020 with programmable multi-bus interface for JTAG and non JTAG architectures.

The adaptive streaming technology of the TAP signals allows emulation tests to be executed in parallel or interactively with Boundary Scan tests within a test program, whereby the number of Taps’ is unlimited. A multitude of possible configurations including multi processor and Gang applications are supported.

The use of VarioTAP® does not require expert background knowledge, additional development tools or processor-specific pods, which makes the handling easy and uncomplicated.

Due to the OEM cooperation with all the leading vendors of In-Circuit Testers (ICT), Manufacturing Defect Analysers (MDA), Flying Probe Testers (FPT) and Functionality Testers (FT), the new solution is available for production with immediate effect.
The new VarioTAP® IP models are supported as standard starting from SYSTEM CASCON™ version 4.5.3, and are activated by the licence manager like the system software. SYSTEM CASCON™ is a professional JTAG/Boundary Scan development environment, developed by GOEPEL electronic with currently 45 completely integrated ISP, test, and debug tools. Regarding the hardware, VarioTAP® is completely supported by the controllers of the SCANBOOSTER™ family, as well as by the hardware platform SCANFLEX®.