Updating the SJTAG "Mission Statement"

[Ian McIntosh]

During the meeting of March 5, 2018, it was noted that SJTAG would benefit from an over-arching "mission statement" that would help to frame any standards that emerge under that banner.

In fact, such a mission statement was created when Ben Bennetts formed the initiative group in 2005 and I've quoted that below. However, it is probably rather too 1149.1-centric (which really just reflects the view of what SJTAG was at the time, c.f. the original SJTAG White Paper), and the scope has probably evolved somewhat since then.

The goal for SJTAG is: For all variants of XBST and EBST, to define the data contents and formats communicated between external Test Manager platforms and internal Embedded Test Controllers,
and
between ETCs and the UUTs they serve in an open-standard, vendor-independent and non-proprietary way.

Another form that was produced, although never formalised as a "statement", came out in posters presented at ITC (2014, 2015):

SJTAG Goals:

• Make the "conventional" JTAG capability ACCESSIBLE through the system hierarchy
• To EXTEND the JTAG capability to use cases beyond the “conventional”
• Provide COORDINATION between diverse standards for Data Links and Access Links

So, what should an up-to-date mission statement say?

[LYUngar1]

Mission Statements:

SJTAG intends to utilize JTAG and similar design for testability (DFT) methodologies and tools in order to ease system level test development and to improve test comprehensiveness. SJTAG goals also include improvements in diagnoses and prognoses without the need for system disassembly and probing to assess system health.

Metrics for test comprehensiveness, diagnostics and prognostics are not part of this standard. It is assumed, however, that quantitative test comprehensiveness is provided for each system under test.

[TerryD]

Louis, I know that metrics are important for you, but the higher we go up in the system hierarchy, the harder it is to get Quantitative metrics. Rather than this statement:
"Metrics for test comprehensiveness, diagnostics and prognostics are not part of this standard. It is assumed, however, that quantitative test comprehensiveness is provided for each system under test."

I think it makes more sense to say something like this:
"Metrics for test comprehensiveness, diagnostics and prognostics are not part of this standard. However, it is agreed that evolving to a point where quantitative test comprehensiveness can be provided at the test system level requires that some form of system level test standard be created."

[Ian McIntosh]

Just a kind of "meta" comment: At this level, we're not really talking about "a standard" per se, more an activity that may over time produce a number of standards, which may or may not address particular topics. We can't predict what will find sufficient support to form a working group. For the "mission" let's concentrate on what the core aims are and not worry too much about possible destinations along the way. That said, there may turn out to be some markers that we agree we need to put down to give direction.

I see this mission statement as a "slow time" activity: We don't need it urgently, and while it'd be really nice to have moving forward, it's the PAR that we're time-bound for drafting.