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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@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Next Meeting
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
8 AM US Pacific Time

               Telephone     Bridge   Passcode
              916-356-2663     3      367-4071

LiveMeeting: https://webjoin.intel.com/?passcode=3674071

Agenda:
- Call for patents
- Opens
- Review of latest draft

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Minutes from December 3:

Attendees:
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(* denotes present)
Agilent                    - Radek Biernacki*, John Moore, Ken Wong
Ansoft                     - Denis Soldo
Cadence Design Systems     - Terry Jernberg, Brad Griffin
Green Streak Programs      - Lynne Green
Hewlett-Packard            - Rob Elliott
Intel                      - Michael Mirmak*
Mentor Graphics Corp.      - John Angulo*, Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov
Micron Technology          - Randy Wolff
Sigrity                    - Sam Chitwood, Raymond Y. Chen, Tao Su, Brad Brim
SiSoft                     - Walter Katz
Teraspeed Consulting Group - Bob Ross*

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No patents were announced.

During opens, John Angulo made some statements about his ICMCHK1 work.  He 
mentioned that Automake must be run to complete the QA tests. Automake 
may not be contributing GPL "viral" code.  He suggested that Kelly Green,
the original developer, run automake (30 minutes of work).  Michael will
check with Kelly on his availability to complete the QA suite.

Bob suggested the team should consider adding an [End] keyword, similar to IBIS.
He reviewed the text he created for [Begin Information Section]/[End 
Information Section].
This will be added to the review draft.

Radek asked again what the objective of the keyword block is and philosophically
how it would be used.  Michael responded that the major objective is to finish 
the 
specification for voting purposes. Bob added that the use of a separate keyword 
block prevents resequencing the entire specification for keywords of limited 
interest.   

Bob reiterated that the section's contents, including additional keywords added
in future, would be parsed and must be approved by the committee for addition 
to the specification.  In particular, a relationship between the mixed-mode 
ports
and interconnect port groups keywords should be checked.  Relationships between
keywords in the information section and those outside will be permitted.

Per a suggestion from Michael, the final sentence of the first paragraph, 
referring
to industry groups, will be removed.  Bob also suggested adding a table of
contents, with specific keywords identified as part of the header.

The word "informational" will be used in the text, after an inquiry from Bob.

Bob also suggested the following structure:
- a [Network Data] keyword be added, but with no [End ...] keyword
- [Noise Data] terminates [Network Data]
- [End] as the final statement in file; anything that follows it is an error

Radek asked why the specification would have end with no begin?  Bob answered
that this is implied from keyword definitions, particularly for the header.  The
original Touchstone, IBIS assumptions, etc. are becoming more difficult to
keep consistent.

Radek stated that he could accept the blocking concept, but would probably be 
happier with formal Begin/End grouping.  He suggested adding a statement on 
possible conflicts, particularly with [Number of ...] keywords, which are 
useful 
in ensuring good memory allocation.  

Bob noted that, if accepted, [End] would terminate [Noise Data], if present.  
If not used,
the conflict between [Number of ...] keywords would identify errors.  [Noise 
Data] would
never occur ahead of [Network Data].  

Michael reviewed his text on filename extensions.  Minor modifications were
made, which will be integrated with the review text.

AR: Bob to check on any conflicts with the use of .ts as an extension.
AR: Michael to provide formal review text.
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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

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