Emulator is first to support Intel's Atom

An Asset Intertech product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Apr 2, 2008

uMaster and Asset's ScanWorks platform can help manufacturers identify faults early in the design cycle, improving prototype yields and accelerating time to market.

Asset InterTech's uMaster is the first CPU emulation test and diagnostic system to support Intel's new Atom processor.

The Atom, which previously had several Intel codenames including Silverthorne and others, is a new low-power processor architecture that is targeting portable battery-operated applications such as mobile Internet devices (MID), low-cost laptop PCs and others.

"uMaster is capable of true CPU emulation, which means it takes control of the CPU and then asserts structural and functional test and diagnostic routines through the processor to other devices and to other nodes on the circuit board", says Alan Sguigna, Asset's Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

"Because Atom is a new micro-architecture which Intel will carry forward into multiple chips and chipsets for years to come, many manufacturers are eager to begin developing their test and diagnostic strategies for Atom-based systems".

"uMaster lets them get started right away".

uMaster and Asset's ScanWorks platform, which includes boundary scan (IEEE1149.1 JTAG) capabilities, can help manufacturers identify faults early in the design cycle, improving prototype yields and accelerating time to market.

And manufacturers can apply both CPU emulation functional tests and diagnostics, as well as extensive structural testing and diagnostics to production boards, substantially reducing manufacturing costs and improving quality.

In addition to Atom, uMaster supports many other Intel processors, including Centrino, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, and the entire Xeon family.

Non-Intel processors supported include chips from AMD, Freescale, IBM, Marvell's XScale, TI's OMAP, ARM and others.