System Controller Manufacturing Test (Part 1)

The Hardware In his November article, Nishant Mittal discussed ways of various ways of testing a board. In this two-part series, Nishant expands on that topic, this time discussing the design of an FPGA-based system controller built for testing and managing complex platforms. Part 1 focuses on the hardware aspect of the system, including the hardware design, building blocks, algorithm and so on. A “system controller” can be defined as a system on a board or a platform capable of managing, controlling and monitoring the entire platform—right from power to communication. A system controller can be used not only to manage a platform, but also to test the peripherals of the platform, which reduces the cost of manufacturing test. As electronic devices become more complex, the platforms for these devices also have become huge. Test coverage of the entire board for various features can become difficult especially when it’s a SoC that has multiple peripherals with different power controls on it. Such types of systems require an equally competent controller onboard that can easily manage and control the entire set of knobs. In my article “Designing Manufacturing Test Systems” (Circuit Cellar 352, November 2019) I discussed, various ways of testing a board. In this article, we will discuss one aspect of that with a system controller on board. All that said, much of this article will focus on the management of knobs and monitoring the system. After the initial development, this can act as a “black box” and can sit on any other platform to perform different actions. This is presented in two parts to help readers understand how to design a system controller using Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ FPGAs and Xilinx tool chains. Here, we’ll discuss the hardware aspects of the system including the design, the building blocks, the algorithm and so on. In Part 2, coming next month, I’ll discuss the software and firmware of the project as a part of complete s