Hi-tech testing GOEPEL electronic

are deploying UC but at the same prefer to maintain part of their traditional desk phone solution on a short- or longer term basis.

Jabra MOTION™ Office thereby provides an excellent solution for the modern office worker who needs the flexibility to transfer calls from the office desk to the car or home office without taking off the headset. Using the latest motion sensor technology, the headset adapts volume to fit the changing sound environment and allows the user to move from the office to the open road in one smooth transition, connecting and transferring calls from all phones to Jabra MOTION™ Office. It is a high-end solution launched to address the Mobile and Unified Communications (UC) market where the current installed base of traditional desk phones need to be supported.

Holger Reisinger, GN Netcom vicepresident of Marketing, Products and Alliances, has been quoted as saying: “The main objective with the Jabra MOTION Office has been to let knowledge workers and team members in remote areas gain the full benefits from their mobile devices and collaboration technologies. The Jabra MOTION Office is the headset which bridges the gap between the users and the promise of productivity and innovation, allowing free flow of information.”

Unified communication

Another area of continued success for GN Netcom is Unified Communication. Today office communication takes place via differ-

ent devices and media types. These include telephone land lines, mobile phones, video conferencing, email and soft phones – and employees can feel stressed and overwhelmed trying to juggle all the different channels and still work effectively.

Unified Communication brings together all these devices and interfaces into one single integrated application. It makes it easier for people to connect, communicate and work together. The result is more productive employees and smoother interactions. This is another big growth area for GN Netcom and will continue to be so. It also sees the convergence of professional and mobile products, as people increasingly work in different places.

Looking ahead, there is still a great deal of scope for development in GN Netcom’s existing markets: According to a company spokesperson: “I think the overall shape of the company will remain the same in the coming years but hopefully we will have gained a bigger market share with our new products. We are still focused very much on our professional users, developing wireless products for call centres, but I do believe expansion over the next years will come in these areas of sport and music for the consumer market. And Unified Communication for the office market.” n

HI-TECH TESTING

GOEPEL electronic has been a pioneer in test technology for PCBs and electronic components for more than 20 years. Peter Mercer reports on its continuing innovation in a city that was home to Carl Zeiss’ revolutionary developments of optical instruments over 150 years ago.

GOEPEL electronic is a world leader in innovative electronic and optical test and inspection systems. Headquartered in Jena, Germany, GOEPEL electronic leads the market in professional JTAG/Boundary Scan solutions for Embedded Access Systems, Automated Optical Inspection systems (AOI) and Automated X-ray Inspection Systems (AXI). The company is also a vendor of intelligent Automotive Test Solutions, from bus communication and ECU test up to functional test systems for vehicle control units.

With three production facilities at its Jena HQ, GOEPEL electronic serves its worldwide customers through a network of branch offices in the UK, France, China, India and the USA. Together with its international distributors and service partners, these offices provide on-site support to several hundred system installations. GOEPEL electronic currently has more than 200 employees, and in 2012 generated revenues of €27m. The company has been continuously ISO9001 certified since 1996 and has been honoured with TOP-JOB and TOP-100 awards for being one of the best medium-sized companies in Germany. Today leading companies in telecommunications, automotive, space and avionics, industrial controls and medical technologies rely on its award-winning products.

Since the first business was set up in Jena in 1992 – Digital Image Processing, known today as AOI Systems – GOEPEL electronic has enjoyed constant growth. “Since we moved to our first new company building in 1995, we have added two more facilities, in 2003 and in 2009, and last year we bought a new 3000m2 site on which we will build dedicated production lines for our latest AOI and AXI products,” says GOEPEL electronic managing director, Thomas Wenzel. “With our recently opened offices in India and China we are extending our global reach and continuing on the path of organic growth that we set out on more than 20 years ago. We are constantly introducing new technologies to our portfolio, such as our 3D automated PCB Inspection system, and by allocating nearly 20 per cent of our turnover to R&D we aim to ensure that we stay on top of technology development in a highly competitive market.

“But while we have become a truly global company we remain firmly rooted in Germany and specifically in the city of Jena which, of course, is world famous for the work of pioneers such as Carl Zeiss in revolutionising the manufacture of optical instruments. We intend to keep all our production here in-house and so maintain not just the reputation for the highest quality that comes with the ‘Made in Germany’ label but also the vital close links between R&D and production.” Boundary Scan and Embedded System Access

GOEPEL electronic was one of the industry pioneers of JTAG/Boundary Scan, the innovative electrical test technology for electronic components and PCBs that was introduced in the 1990s. JTAG/Boundary Scan tests within the circuit and detects structural fault locations by setting thousands of test points, even under Ball Grid Arrays, with only four test bus lines. Boundary Scan essentially means ‘testing at the periphery (the boundaries) of a circuit’. In order to implement this sort of testing, GOEPEL electronic has developed the principle of interaction of the hardware components – controller, I/O module, TAP transceiver and UUT – that make up the company’s SCANFLEX JTAG/Boundary Scan system architecture. These hardware products are supported by the SYSTEM CASCON software platform.

Modern PCBs typically provide more and more functionality on less and less space, and are equipped with a lot of components whose pins are increasingly harder or even impossible to access by traditional In-Circuit Tester nails. In particular, the old strategy of invasive probe access cannot be used for modern system assemblies equipped with Ball Grid Arrays and Chip Size Packaging. So, in 2012, GOEPEL electronic introduced Embedded System Access (ESA) technology as a new business area. ESA technologies are currently the most