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IBIS INTERCONNECT MODELING AD HOC TASK GROUP MEETING MINUTES AND AGENDA

http://www.eda.org/ibis/adhoc/interconnect/

Mailing list: ibis-interconn@freelists.org

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Next Meeting
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
9 AM US Pacific Time

               Telephone     Bridge   Passcode
              916-356-2663     5      907-4765

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	Meeting ID:	45f9bc41f47442a38835869aea127432
	Entry Code:	hVm7VUDE6e
	Location:	meet:sip:michael.mirmak@intel.com;gruu;opaque=app:conf:focus:id:45f9bc41f47442a38835869aea127432%3Fconf-key=hVm7VUDE6e

Agenda:
- Review of Touchstone(R) 2.0 port ordering/grouping proposals
- Mixed-mode support discussion

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Minutes from March 5:

Attendees:
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(* denotes present)
Agilent                    - Radek Biernacki*, John Moore
Ansoft                     - Denis Soldo*
Green Streak Programs      - Lynne Green
Hewlett-Packard            - Rob Elliott*
Intel                      - Michael Mirmak*
Mentor Graphics Corp.      - John Angulo*
Micron Technology          - Randy Wolff*
Sigrity                    - Sam Chitwood, Raymond Y. Chen*
SiSoft                     - Walter Katz*
Teraspeed Consulting Group - Bob Ross*

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Rob Elliott described several additional features he would like to see
added to the draft Touchstone 2.0 document:
- use the bang (!) comment character for new keywords, to enable existing tools
  to read the new files; this is on the assumption that the changes do
  not fundamentally affect the 1.0/2.0 data
- add a keyword to indicate port ordering, so that interconnect assignments
  are unambiguous (T11.org has proposed such an ordering)

Additionally, Michael Mirmak noted that port ordering, mixed-mode and bubble
diagrams had been requested by an Intel engineer.

Radek Biernacki and Bob Ross observed that the changes in 2.0, particularly
in upper- and lower-half matrices, removal of normalization and per-port
reference impedances would make comment-only support of new keywords difficult
for 2.0 features.  Rob suggested that he can accept a unique 2.0 syntax if
a list of trivial and non-trivial features was added to the document.  Bob
noted the presence of a compatibility section at the end of the current document.

Rob noted that he uses StatEye, which reads S-parameter Touchstone data.  
He added that he was both helping to code improvements and in contact with 
other developers to assist in updating StatEye's S-parameter support.  Fiberchannel and
Serial ATA analysis would be eased if clear port ordering/arrangement was
included in the Touchstone 2.0 format.  Walter Katz agreed, noting that
mappings between ports and physical nodes or pins and possibly an indication
of differential pairings is required.  He suggested using a node ordering
syntax already seen in some commercial SPICE variants.  

John Angulo observed that ICM already contains S-parameter support and
mapping to physical nodes/ports.  Michael added that some clarifications
were still needed but were in-progress (IIRD9) before the Touchstone 2.0
efforts began.

The team agreed to consider adding the port ordering syntax.  Michael
will distribute one or more proposals for added specification text for
the feature.  The mixed-mode discussion will be held during the next
meeting.

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Team Objectives:
1) complete ICM-IBIS linking BIRD and any associated changes to the 
   ICM specification
2) update the ICM specification, if needed, to clarify the mapping of 
   ICM nodes to S-parameter ports
3) complete a specification for "Touchstone Plus" or similar 
   industry-standard definition for Touchstone-like files, to include 
   complex impedance references, removal of limits on the maximum number
   of ports and per-port impedance references