We asked one of the guys in-house who works with XJDeveloper most of the time to give some tips from his experience of setting up projects, and here is what he came up with:

(These tips assume the JTAG chain is already configured)

  1. Start from the bottom of the Unassigned Devices list, i.e. with the series resistors, and work your way up.
  2. As components are categorised and more are discovered go back to the bottom and work your way up again.
  3. Once you have classified the first batch of series resistors it is worth checking any new Suggested Series Resistors that appear immediately.  It is unusual to have multiple series resistors on the same net.  If you get lots of new series resistors for classification is it likely that a power net has not been correctly categorised.
  4. Classify all Suggested Resistor Packs as pull resistor packs and then use the errors to identify which ones should really be classified as series resistor packs.
  5. In general capacitors go in the ignore list.  The only time they do not is if they happen to be on a net between two 1149.6 devices.
  6. Unused connectors and headers go in the ignore list.
  7. When classifying a Suggested Device use the Explorer to check there is enough access to a device to test it before spending the time locating the right XJEase script.
  8. Test points go in the Unfitted category.  This stops them having an effect on the DFT coverage report.  Uncheck “Only Show Accessible Devices” to make sure they are all found.
  9. Classify any fuses, ferrite bead, or inductors with a PDD file so that all the power nets on the board are correctly identified.  Again, uncheck “Only Show Accessible Devices” to make sure they are all found.
  10. Make sure you read any BSDL file warnings (before you disable warnings on those devices). Reading them is likely to explain why the JTAG chain didn’t run the first time you tried it…