====================================================================== IBIS INTERCONNECT TASK GROUP MEETING MINUTES AND AGENDA http://www.eda.org/ibis/interconnect_wip/ (note new URL) Mailing list: ibis-interconn@freelists.org ====================================================================== Next Meeting Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9 AM US Pacific Time Telephone Bridge Passcode 916-356-2663 5 761-0697 (for international and alternate US numbers, contact Michael Mirmak) LiveMeeting: https://webjoin.intel.com/?passcode=7610697 Agenda: - Attendees - Call for patents - Review of Minutes * January 19, 2011 - Opens - IBIS-ISS Draft 0.95 Review - MCP Discussion - Touchstone 2.x Status/Plans - Agenda for Next Meeting - Approve Next Meeting Dates: * Feb. 2 - NO MEETING * Feb. 9 (potential for cancellation/alternate chair?) * Feb. 16 ====================================================================== Attendees: ---------- (* denotes present) Agilent - Radek Biernacki Ansoft - Denis Soldo Cadence Design Systems - Terry Jernberg, Brad Griffin, Dennis Nagle, Taranjit Kukal Cisco Systems - Mike LaBonte IBM - Greg Edlund ICT-Lanto - Steven Wong Intel - Michael Mirmak* Mentor Graphics Corp. - John Angulo*, Arpad Muranyi* Micron Technology - Justin Butterfield*, Randy Wolff Sigrity - Brad Brim SiSoft - Walter Katz* Teraspeed Consulting Group - Bob Ross* ======================================================================== No patents were declared. Michael Mirmak reviewed the 0.9 version of the IBIS-ISS specification. Additional changes were suggested by the team. These included: - removing the word "operator" as an undefined term (Michael) - removing the integer-only restriction on voltage sources In addition, the team discussed whether the illegal strings listing should be removed, as the list is tool-specific. The use of POLY as a modifier for capacitor was discussed as an example. Arpad Muranyi noted that subcircuit hierarchy makes the operator restrictions easier to observe; restrictions on subcircuit definitions and usage in IBIS-ISS should not affect the netlist including IBIS-ISS files. The team discussed the use of X as a synonym for MEG. Bob Ross suggested that X be made legal, with text from Michael added on discouraging its use Walter Katz disagreed, suggesting that X not be used with text to this effect. Bob noted that this was also acceptable to him. Bob added that he was concerned about money being available for parser development. The only parser that would initially exist would be the Synopsys HSPICE* parser, so unique aspects and sensitivities of IBIS-ISS would not be not be available to the industry. Michael noted that any specification is easier to liberalize later than constrain later. Michael called for objections regarding making X illegal. No objections were raised. Bob Ross suggested that the context was missing in the previous minutes regarding placement of $ vs. * characters and line continuation. The minutes of the discussion should be interpreted only to apply to the double-backslash sequence as used as a line continuation. Arpad asked whether M= exists as an option for elements. Is it limited to integers only? After some discussion, the team agreed that an integer-only restriction makes sense, and that M= might apply to other elements but would not be as meaningful for them as for subcircuits. The team briefly discussed DC voltage sources vs. shunts. Michael noted that the minutes of the last meeting reflect the vote and also Walter's objection, lodged later due to an interruption when the vote was taken. Walter added that he withdraws his objection, and will bring the voltage source issue up at the eventual IBIS Open Forum discussion on IBIS-ISS as potential problem with inteconnect and LTI definitions. The team scheduled a vote on IBIS-ISS release for the next meeting. This should be brief so as not to conflict with the rescheduled MCP discussion.