SoCtronics | Platform Testing

SoCtronics testing team has rich expertise in analyzing product requirements and defining test cases for embedded systems firmware and drivers running on various hardware platforms. Teams are involved in both pre-silicon and post-silicon testing. Team has expertise in setting up complex test beds and bringing up the hardware whether it is FPGA or silicon. We provide end-to-end testing services for embedded software across a host of target devices and a wide range of processors/SOCs.

Below are some of the platforms the teams have experience on

Various ARM Cortex-M based microcontroller chips
- a. STM32 Nucleo development boards .
Various ARM based ASICs
- a. ARM based Smart lighting IC
- b. ARM based Voice biometrics IC
- c. ARM based far-field and voice front-end IC
Application specific X86 based platforms for mixed reality, automotive markets
MIPS based SoC for wearables
TI SoC based tablets and customized medical devices on Android OS
Xilinx FPGA emulation platforms
X86 based mixed reality platform
Zynq platforms with Linux OS on ARM Cortex-A9

Testing involves verifying the platform functionality including all device drivers, BSP, SDK features, firmware application, power states and power management, performance, security etc. Boot ROM, Boot Loaders are tested thoroughly in pre-silicon stage. Testing team works hand-in-hand with the development team starting right from the requirements phase till the release of the SoC to market. Test case coverage is measured both by functional coverage (requirement coverage) and code-coverage (to ensure no parts of the code is left out).

Team has expertise in using and automating various analyzers and test equipment like Logic analyzers, Oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers – Teledyne Lecroy (USB), Beagle (I2C Packet analysis), Audio analysis tools like Audio Precision tool, and software such as Audacity, wireshark etc.

This is an ultra-small form factor System-on-Chip (SoC) processing unit designed primarily for Internet of Things (IoT) applications ranging from office centralization to setting up of smart homes and smart lighting solutions. The design techniques used in SoC reduces the overall power consumption to one-tenth of the typical values, thereby making it ideal for the ultra-low power IoT applications. The SoC is equipped with powerful Cortex M4 processor with integrated BLE/Zigbee connectivity. The programmable power solution enhances connectivity and enables low BOM/cost and highly secure system. The SoC also include a wide variety of peripherals that enables a fully independent embedded microcontroller solution which can also be used in Hosted mode with another SOC for advanced signal processing.

Team has expertise in developing the automation test cases for the SoC Peripherals, Clocks, System, Timer, Power, Security and Memory.

Created automation tests for the below modules :
- QSPI
- WDT
- PDMA
- I2C
- UART
- GPIO
- Timers
Tested the following :
- Boot ROM
- Boot SW(BL1, BL2)
Pre-silicon and post silicon validation done for the SoC
Setting up of pre-silicon and post-silicon test environment on different boards like FPGA, and ASIC boards
Long run tests that run on different boards to check the stability

In this project, team has worked on firmware testing of SOC for domain control unit (DCU) which handles domain specific functions within the Automotive such as Powertrain Controller, entertainment, ADAS and slow speed interface such as CAN/UART/I2C etc. used for car body functions such as lights, camera, microphone, windows, door lock or a gateway. This SOC has a R52 processor and hence it can be used to supervise and control functions. PCI express interface support by the controller helps to act as an interfacing chip with main processors.

IFabric is a proprietary local area network stack for time and latency critical applications i.e. Autonomous Systems, Industrial Control Infrastructure etc. IFabric is used as a Domain Gateway for each DCU node as shown in the diagram below. It uses DP as an interface to achieve time and latency requirements.

Firmware testing covers proprietary iFabric stack, CAN stack, ethernet stack, routing application, PCIe drivers etc which are described as below:

Each DCU SOC shall be active with 4 CAN Ports, 1 Ethernet port and 1 PCIe port
CAN module consists of both CAN driver and CAN stack.
The Ethernet module consists of the ethernet driver, TCP/IP stack.
Proprietary iFabric module handles both ingress and egress of the data to and from other interfaces and nodes.
PCI module handles the Tx & Rx of the PCIe streams to and from interfacing host PC
Routing application handles routing data between interfaces and iFabric.

Embedded Testing of SOC involves:

Testing CAN Standard and FD Functionality with multi- instances, frame sizes, baud rates, priorities, loopback(external and internal) tests, extended mode, acceptance filters, primary/secondary transmission buffer, receive buffer empty/overflow, timestamping, transmission and receive errors.
Gigabit Ethernet testing with addressing, 10Mbps/100Mbps support, ram segmentation, TCP/UDP LWIP stack support, frame segmentation, fixed priority and ETS and DWRR scheduling algorithms tests, jumbo packets, full duplex, half duplex, unicast, multicast, broadcast tests, discard on error, endianness swapping, retry mechanism, Tx/Rx multi-queuing tests, testing Tx/Rx statistics for different counters for type of frames, frame sizes, collisions, errors, data integrity tests etc.
SDK APIs and routing patterns test scenarios between different interfaces.
Bandwidth and Latency measurement for DCU-DCU, DCU-local interface, DCU- Remote Interface.
Interoperability tests for IPs with commercially available products.
Network statistics (like alive msg frequency, packet losses/errors, stream status and diagnostics etc) measurement through in-house developed Software.
Boot ROM and bootloader related tests with different booting methods.
Node-Node Ring topology test cases like heartbeat msg flow tracking, broken link detection, local node and remote node message transaction, alarms, events and errors detection time, Message transit time back to gateway.

We have expertise in testing touch sensors and Haptics mobile technologies. Team has experience in testing various algorithms developed for these sensors on emulation platforms and evaluation boards.

Features Tested

Boot time buzz
GPI Trigger playback
ROM to RAM Handover
OTP
Button press
I2C transaction support
Hardware Watchdog timer

High level Block Diagram:

Test Scenarios

Boot time configuration
Configure Buzz Parameters
GPI Configuration
GPIO Haptic mapping
Verify the stability of the system by continuously loading and unloading the firmware.
Verify FW stability by continuously switching between pre-loaded waveforms.
Verify FW stability by continuously switching between GPI and I2C/SPI trigger

SoCtronics Team have extensive experience in measuring and benchmarking power attributes across various components within the customized devices for verifying the following global power states:

Active
Suspend
Idle

Following are few of the components which we have measured the power values in various power states based on the activity being performed on the DUT:

Camera
WiFi
SOM (System On Module)
GPS (Global Positioning System)
Touch Screen
Display

Following diagram walks through the Basic Setup and Measurement of Power using an in house developed system application and hardware.

The SoCtronics Team have extensive experience in certifying the Android Devices as per the requirements and functionalities enabled within the platform. Based on the functionalities, certification of the device will be performed using the standard certification tools furnished by AOSP

- CTS (Compatibility Test Suite) which certifies the framework & application layers of Android, VTS
- VTS (Vendor Test Suite) which certifies the Kernel framework
- ITS (Image Test Suite) which certifies the Camera framework

We are fully versed in customizing the CTS, VTS & ITS execution in certifying the platforms as per need basis; as CTS & VTS being a humongous test suite, customization in executing CTS & VTS helps to optimize the testing time and help development activities with ease of usage and execution feedback. With a customized x86 Platform running Android, it is required to certify the platform by meeting minimum coding standards for Android Stack usage. Some of the module level certifications include:

Kernel
Media
Security
Camera
Graphics, etc.

Following block diagram depicts the workflow of CTS execution: