Being a very popular choice due to their flexibility, the usage of FPGA in a board design significantly increases the complexity of testing such a board. This applies to the whole product cycle, starting from the prototype stage, then to mass production, and also for troubleshooting and field returns. At the same time, if the board is not tested thoroughly, defects could go undiscovered, leading to serious consequences such as system failure and safety hazards.

This whitepaper describes how the test practitioners, board designers, as well as FPGA developers, could benefit from leveraging autogenerated test firmware (Quick Instruments) for testing their boards and ensuring the overall quality of the product shipped to the customers.