VTOS Scan Plus is a new addition to Kozio’s line of embedded software tools for circuit board testing. VTOS Scan Plus provides tests for a number of hardware interfaces allowing you to validate a circuit board design before the boot loader or OS run. VTOS Scan Plus includes tests and commands for GPIO, I2C, SPI, UART, Ethernet PHY, NOR Flash, and SD/MMC.

VTOS Scan Plus provides functional tests that run from the processor. The VTOS Scan firmware is loaded and runs on any circuit board device without porting or modification. A graphical user interface is provided for test configuration. All test configuration data can be exported for automated testing of one or more devices in parallel.

The VTOS Scan product line provides the ability to test your hardware with no development effort, a very small learning curve, and the ability to test before the boot loader or operating system are running. All products are designed for automated testing with a small integration effort.

Here is a diagram of the setup used for this example.

Here is a photograph of VTOS Scan Plus running on the SABRE Lite reference board.

The VTOS Scan Plus firmware can be loaded onto your target device using a JTAG interface, or other interfaces supported by that processor. For example, Kozio provides an example configuration file for the SABRE Lite reference board with a NXP i.MX6 Quad processor. The VTOS Scan Plus firmware can be loaded onto the i.MX6 using the USB interface and Kozio’s imx_usb_loader.exe. Kozio provides a target firmware image file that can be loaded onto any i.MX6 board design without modification. The VTOS Scan Plus firmware boots nearly instantaneously.

The VTOS Scan GUI is used to create a new VTOS Scan Plus test configuration.

With the firmware loaded and running, the VTOS Scan GUI is used for creating your desired test sequence. VTOS Scan Plus provides a number of tests including: PHY Exists and PHY Verify Test, BlueTooth (BT) Exists and BT Verify tests, I2C Device Exists and I2C Device Verify tests, SD/MMC Device Exists and SD/MMC Device Verify tests, NOR Flash Device Exists and NOR Flash Device Verify tests, SPI Device Exists and SPI Device Verify tests, UART Device Exists, Verify, and Loopback tests, and GPIO tests.

The very first step is to load the VTOS Scan firmware onto the target and then use the Connections button in the tool bar to establish a connection. For this example, we used a serial connection to the target board. Click on Connections and then select the options: VTOS Scan Plus, i.MX6, Serial, and the discovered COM port.

If you load and run the VTOS Scan Firmware after you have established a connection in the GUI, you will see the VTOS Scan firmware boot messages, which starts with “DUT ready”.

For the i.MX6 processor we are required to include and run a pin configuration, or pin mux, file. A pin configuration file can be automatically imported from an NXP pin mux file, which is created using the NXP pin mux utility. Once the pin mux is configured, a number of busses can be automatically scanned. Use the right-mouse menu option to “Run Scan”. This command will attempt to discover all devices on the interface. You can also use additional menu options to scan and automatically add tests.

For certain devices, it may be required to write to memory or toggle a GPIO line. All VTOS Scan tools provide low-levels commands that can be added to any test sequence. Every node in the configuration tree has a place to add Setup Actions and Cleanup Actions. Click on a node in the configuration tree, then click on the setup or cleanup actions to expose a button (on the far right of the GUI) which will launch the Configure Actions dialogue box. You use this dialogue to add any and all special commands as needed for your custom board configuration.

After you have added all desired test cases, you can use the tool bar Run button to run the entire test sequence from top to bottom.

This example configuration was saved and is available when you install the Kozio VTOS Tools package. All example configuration files are stored under the “boards” folder and then the appropriate processor folder.

As a next step, click on File / Export to export this configuration to a Kozio script file or to an NI TestStand sequence (*.seq) file. More export options will be added as we work with new test executives. The exported test configuration is used for automatic testing during long regression test runs or during manufacturing test.

Here are screen shots of running the two exported files. There are two screen shots of using Kozio’s free vAccessTest.exe and one of using NI’s TestStand.

If you would like to try VTOS Scan Plus out with a Free Trial, click here and we will send you a license. Everything is downloaded and activated over the internet.

If you have other circuit board testing needs, please contact us.