One of the new features in the recent v3.1 software release is a Fault Dictionary. This release cycle, one of our main goals was to make XJTAG more production friendly, and the fault dictionary provides a way of sharing relevant knowledge about a board between development and production engineers.

The fault dictionary is used to display helpful information to users, particularly in the production environment,  when common faults are found on a board. A fault can be as simple as a single test failing, or can be made dependent on a particular combination of return values from a large number of your functions. The message you set will be displayed in the XJRunner output after testing when all these conditions are met. This can be used to give instructions to basic users as they need them, but where it really shines is giving more detailed information to help repair engineers quickly and efficiently pinpoint the location of the fault on your board.

An example of a detailed fault

The fault dictionary can be set up and edited at the development stage in XJDeveloper, on the factory floor in XJRunner (for users with project management privileges) and at the repair station in out newest application, XJInvestigator. This means that it can be kept up to date at every stage of development and production. Common faults only have to be diagnosed once and it provides an easy way for multiple engineers working on the same project to store and share knowledge. One of our key development philosophies is not to repeat work unnecessarily, and we hope that the fault dictionary will reduce repeated work in diagnosing and repairing common faults.

Are there any other ways in which XJTAG could make your life easier or more efficient? Let us know at XJTAG support or in the comments.