An educational environment for digital testing: hardware, tools, and Web-based runtime platform

We describe a new e-learning environment and a runtime platform for educational tools on digital system testing and design for testability. This environment is being developed in Tallinn University of Technology and consists of several functional layers. The first one is the hardware component used for illustration of various physical phenomena appearing in defected circuits. In many cases such phenomena are hard to illustrate by software simulation or by any other means, which makes the usage of such a hardware component unavoidable. The second component is a set of university tools covering a large scope of topics in basics of testing, diagnosis, and BIST. The tools represent an efficient alternative to hard-to-learn and expensive commercial CAD systems. The wrapper to these two components is a cross-platform Web interface that represents a server-based solution for using all the available tools and the hardware over Internet. The whole platform is an extendable server-based low-cost solution, which is easy to set-up and use. The learning environment is complemented by laboratory work scenarios and teaching materials that also available in the Web.