What is JTAG and for what is it used?

I see JTAG Emulators used in various DSP applications in conjunction with the DSP boards. However, I am not sure what it is for, although I know it is used with C6000 DSP boards.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

JTAG Emulators are real-time, transparent in-circuit emulators based on the JTAG boundary scan port. JTAG is used solely for fast data transfer purposes. Usually data is sent and received through the conventional parallel ports. However, JTAG allows high-speed data transfer and connects to the JTAG pins on your DSK. For TI DSP's, the xds560 based JTAG emulators specifically allow High Speed RTDX and other features.

For applications on Real-Time Video and Image Processing, JTAG will be very crucial. However, the down side is that JTAG is fairly expensive. In fact, in most cases it is more expensive than the DSP board itself.