The Silicon Review - Best Business Review Magazine 50 Most Trustworthy Companies 2019 | Page 40

An Interview with Glenn Woppman,
ASSET InterTech, Inc. President, CEO, and
Chairman of the Board: ‘We’re the Leader
in JTAG-based Testing and Debug’
“Our mission doesn’t end with best-in-class tools. It begins there and ends in long-lasting relationships with users.”
O
ver the last decade, the speed
and complexity of electronic
systems has increased
dramatically. At the same time,
applications have demanded lower
and lower power consumption,
leaving little margin for error in
system design and manufacturing.
In addition, software, firmware and
hardware have become increasingly
interdependent. Each must be
debugged within the context of the
others. And that’s why the vision
for the ASSET InterTech, Inc.
created SourcePoint and ScanWorks
platforms, calls for them to be
brought closer together, creating a
seamless validation, test and debug
environment across hardware and
software. That’s real insight into
root causes.
ASSET InterTech develops and
supplies software and hardware
debug, validation, and test tools.
It offers SourcePoint, a platform
of debug and trace tools for C/
C++ embedded software and
firmware for Intel, AMD and Arm
systems; ScanWorks, a platform
that validates, characterizes, and
test chips and circuit boards in
development, manufacturing,
and field service; Boundary-Scan
Test, test software that develops
interconnect tests and device-
programming actions for use on
first-prototype boards to accelerate
the bring-up process; and Processor-
based Functional Test, development
software for engineers to increase
test and fault coverage via at-speed
tests using low-level control of the
processor. Both ScanWorks’ test
technologies enable test reuse from
design with tools that support the
manufacturing and repair procesess.
Additional tools in the ScanWorks
platform focus on fast device
programming. Fast FPGA-based in-
system Programming (FFP) is a tool
with downloadable design functions
to program large memories quickly
to keep up with the manufacturing
line beat rate. Complementing FFP is
Processor-based Fast Programming
(PFP) to achieve the same goal when
memories are accessible from the
processor instead of the FPGA fabric.
The company also offers ScanWorks
Embedded Diagnostics (SED), a
custom embedded In-Target Probe
(ITP) implementation that provides
on-target run-control via baseboard
management controllers (BMC) for
target applications; SED supports
two embedded applications;
test during power-on self-test
applications and debug for system
hang applications as a forensic tool
to aid in finding intermittent field
faults in software or hardware.
In addition, ASSET InterTech offers
a variety of hardware modules
and accessories, including probes,
trace ports, analyzers, controllers,
adapters, interposers, and other
hardware for the SourcePoint and
ScanWorks platforms.
The company was incorporated
in 1995 and is headquartered
in Richardson, Texas. It has
additional office locations in
Anaheim California (Development);
Letterkenny Ireland (Development);
and sales/support offices in
Shanghai China; San Diego and
San Jose California; Minneapolis
Minnesota; Boston Massachusetts;
and Stoke-on-Trent UK.
Glenn Woppman, ASSET
InterTech, Inc. President/
CEO/ Chairman of the
Board, spoke exclusively
to The Silicon Review.
Below is an excerpt.
Why was the company set
up? And how did you expand
your company and its
offerings over the years?
ASSET InterTech is a spin-off of a
Texas-based company called Texas
Instruments (TI). The company was
incorporated in support of a new,
revolutionary test technology called
boundary scan, based on the IEEE