DATE: 12/9/97 SUBJECT: 12/5/97 EIA IBIS Open Forum Minutes VOTING MEMBERS AND 1997 PARTICIPANTS LIST: AMP Jeff Walden Applied Simulation Technology [Dileep Divekar], Norio Matsui, Raj Raghuram, Fred Balistreri* Cadence Design & UniCAD C. Kumar, Don Telian, Cameron Seitz Cypress Bruce Wenniger Digital Equipment Corp. Jeff Chu Hewlett Packard, EEsof Karl Kachigan, Henry Wu High Design Technology (Razvan Ene) HyperLynx Kellee Crisafulli, Steve Kaufer, Matthew Flora* INCASES Olaf Rethmeier, Werner Rissiek Intel Corporation Stephen Peters*, Arpad Muranyi*, Henry Maramis, Will Hobbs, Frank Kern Interconnectix Bob Ross*, Neven Orhanovic Mitsubushi Tam Cao, Hoang Nguyen Motorola [Ahmed Omer], Michael Desiderio, Paul Bolden, Tom Myers, Rob Wenzel National Semiconductor Syed Huq*, Cheng-Yang Kao, Mike Bristol, [Peter Laflamme], [Kevin Smith] NCR Dave Moxley*, Richard Mellitz NEC (Hiroshi Matsumoto) Quantic EMC (Mike Ventham) Texas Instruments Thomas Fisher Thomson-CSF/SCTF (Jean LeBrun) Viewlogic Jon Powell, Chris Rokusek, Peivand Tehrani Graham Bell VeriBest Ian Dodd, William Bell, Dave Wiens VLSI Technology Harish Patel, D.C. Sessions* OTHER PARTICIPANTS IN 1997: 3M [Fran Hart] Actel Scott Schlachter Acuson & Free Model Foundation Richard Munden Alcatel John Fitzpatrick Ansoft Eric Bogatin Apteq Design Systems Dan FitzPatrick Compaq Weston Beal, Mark Leonard Dell Computer Dave Baranauskas, Doug Wallace EIA Patti Rusher EMC Fabrizio Zanella Hewlett Packard, Boise Paul Gregory* Hewlett Packard, France Jean-Christophe Pautrat Hitachi Saburo Hojo, Yasushi Ogawa IBM Brad Herrman Interface Technology Dan Waterloo Micron Technology Brian Johnson Molex Gus Panella North Carolina State U. (Michael Steer) Philips Semiconductor Todd Andersen S3, Inc. Porsh Shih, Sarathy Sribhashyam Symmetry Andy Hughes Tandem Mark Simpson TRW Ray Steele Ultratest International Charles Im Zeelan Technology George Opsahl In the list above, attendees at the meeting are indicated by *. Principal members or other active members who have not attended are in parentheses. Participants who no longer are in the organization are in square brackets. Upcoming Meetings: The bridge numbers for future IBIS teleconferences are as follows: Date Bridge Number Reservation # Passcode January 9, 1998 (916) 356-9200 6-8002 4618642 All meetings are 8:00 AM to 9:55 AM Pacific Time. We try to have agendas out 7 days before each Open Forum and meeting minutes out within 7 days after. When you call into the meeting, ask for the IBIS Open Forum hosted by Will Hobbs and give the reservation number and passcode. NOTE: "AR" = Action Required. -------------------------------- MINUTES ------------------------------------- INTRODUCTIONS AND MEETING QUORUM No new participants. MEMBERSHIP UPDATE AND TREASURER'S REPORT No new report since the last report of about $6008. Bob Ross wants the IBIS DAC98 support fee of the EDA Booth at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) to be taken out of these funds. Bob also requested Syed Huq to do the update of the roster to catch up with company name changes, affiliations, etc. Syed will do this in January. REVIEW OF MINUTES AND AR'S Bob Ross noted a name correction. The AR's will be talked discussed during the meeting. MISCELLANY/ANNOUNCEMENTS Bob Ross mentioned that discussions about Majordomo conversion have begun. Some points still need to be resolved regarding archiving mail, bounced messages, and "closed" list. One of the consequences may be that only people whose e-mail addresses match those on the list will be able to send messages. In other words, if you send a message from another account or from your system which does not match the "alias" address, you would get a Majordomo message on how to subscribe message. So this could be an in convenience to some during the transition. Arpad Muranyi asked why we are doing the conversion, and Bob responded that this was requested for computer support reasons. Bob will be on vacation through December 15, and Syed Huq will be handling the Sys Op duties including mailing list management. PRESS AND WEB PAGE UPDATES Syed Huq reported that he has uploaded his presentation on "Understanding and Using IBIS Models for Signal Integrity Analysis", presented at the High-level Electronic System Design Conference, (HESDC) in October, 1997. It is located on the EIA IBIS Home page under "Articles" for downloading. Syed also has corrected the FAQ file. Bob Ross changed bug.dir to bugdir.txt under /pub/ibis/bugs/ibischk on eda.org so that it could be more easily viewed and downloaded from browsers. NEW MODELS AVAILABLE, LIBRARY UPDATE Bob Ross reported an updated link from QuickLogic: http://www.quicklogic.com/support/tech_support Bob also reported new models on the Cypress and IDT sites. OPENS FOR NEW ISSUES Bob Ross on IBIS East Meeting. Bob Ross on meeting regarding helping create good models Matthew Flora on BIRD46, Relaxation of some IBIS Model file name restrictions INTERNATIONAL PROGRESS - IEC 62014-1 (IBIS Version 2.1) - Bob Ross reported that Patti Rusher is still waiting for the official approval of the unanimous vote from IEC. When approval is reached, the IEC nomenclature will be added to the ANSI/EIA-656 document. Patti will also issue a press release. - EIAJ III (I/O Interface Model for ICs) - No report DESIGNCON98 IBIS SUMMIT Syed Huq updated us on the IBIS Summit meeting planned on Monday, January 26, 1998 and Hosted by National Semiconductor and the same location as DesignCon98. Syed Huq updated us on plans for the EIA IBIS Summit Meeting on Monday, January 26, 1998. He has reserved a room at the Westin Hotel adjacent to the Santa Clara Convention Center. Syed has sent out early information regarding location and hotels and a call for presentations. He is still seeking more presentations. If you want to do an IBIS related presentation, send the information to huq@rockie.nsc.com Please indicate the Title, and estimated time. (We are looking for about 15-20 minute presentations with possible discussions afterwards, and will plan the agenda around the presentations submitted. If possible electronic copies should be submitted beforehand to Syed so that he can have copies available at the IBIS Summit.) Bob Ross indicated that he might talk about what he looks at to validate models - and have a discussion based on some material discussed later in the minutes regarding getting better IBIS models. Paul Gregory and/or Arpad Muranyi might talk about higher speed considerations. Arpad might also talk about modeling dynamic clamps. (later, Ed Sayre might talk about IBIS East Users group.) Syed will send out the formal call for presentations at a later time. He also needs people to sign up for planning the buffet lunch. Syed and Bob discussed that IBIS Meeting attendees who are on the IBIS mailing lists may get a discount to attend DesignCon98. If this is possible, the details will be in the next IBIS Summit message from Syed. The only issue is if the logistics are doable. DESIGNCON98 DesignCon98 (formerly Design SuperCon) is scheduled Tuesday-Thurday, January 28-30, 1998 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The Signal Integrity track on Tuesday has three presentation that relate to IBIS modeling along with an IBIS panel session on "How Good are the Currently Available IBIS Models". Several IBIS Committee members are expected to be on the panel. This will provide an opportunity to express plans in addressing the issue of getting better IBIS models from all sources. DesignCon98 information is available at: http://www.designcon.com DATE98 (DESIGN AUTOMATION AND TEST IN EUROPE) IBIS SUMMIT The DATE98 Conference will be held Monday thru Thursday, February 23-26, 1998 in Paris France. Several IBIS and PCB Design related activities are being planned. The DATE Conference itself is the continuation of EuroDAC (with EuroVHDL) and ED&TC (EDAC, ETC, and EuroASIC). More information is available at: http://www.date-conference.com - IBIS Fringe Meeting - Tuesday, February 24, 1998 Bob Ross mentioned that there is a possibility of an IBIS fringe meeting on Tuesday evening, February 24 to give general IBIS information, answer questions, and discuss IBIS. This has not been formally set up yet and is probably unlikely in view of the activity the following days. - PCB Symposium - Wednesday, February 25, 1998 Bob Ross reported on plans in progress for an all day PCB Symposium on Wednesday, February 25, 1998. So far, it is co-sponsored by Cadence, Incases, Mentor Graphics, VeriBest, ViewLogic, Xynetix, and Zuken-Redac. The plans are to include 30 minute presentations from each company on an aspect of PCB design. The Mentor contribution will be on Getting IBIS Models by Bob. Also a one-hour panel session is planned. A buffet lunch will be provided. This is planned from 10 AM to 5 PM. Information on this including how to sign up will be sent to the IBIS reflector when it is available. - IBIS Summit - Thursday, February 26, 1998 Bob reported that so far Cadence and High Design Technology and Mentor Graphics are co-sponsoring the IBIS Summit meeting scheduled on Thursday, February 26, 1998. A buffet lunch will be planned for attendees. Bob has sent out an initial Call for Papers and is still seeking papers. The response so far indicates a very good program for exchanging ideas and information. Possible presentations planned so far include: John Fitzpatrick: Use of IBIS in Alcatel Syed Huq: IBIS Model Development at National Incases: IBIS and Radiation Analysis Razvan Ene (HDT): IBIS Models for EMC and High-Frequency Devices Bernhard Unger (Siemens) SI-Analysis with HSPICE Based on IBIS Behavioral Models Other presentations so far may be from Arpad Muranyi, (another from Siemens), and Bob (if needed). Send presentation proposals to bob@icx.com S2IBIS2 Bob Ross reported that R. Sanjeev (Presi) has done some working on s2ibis2 for handing ECL devices. He has put out a request on the reflector for Spice models for ECL devices to test s2ibis2. The Veribest AR regarding s2ibis2 for NT remains. AR - Ian Dodd put s2ibis_ver2.1 for Windows on the VeriBest Web site. EDITING COMMITTEE Bob Ross reported again that the first editorial pass of IBIS Version 3.0 as /pub/ibis/wip/ver3_1a.ibs The BNF AR remains. AR - Bob Ross generate and post a BNF for IBIS Version 3.0 (and IBIS Version 3.0 ratification AR). BIRD44 - INTERPRETATION OF MIN/MAX/WEAK/STRONG DATA Discussion on this was planned, but it was deferred until later. Later, the Bob wanted this to be considered at this time since the idea of having explicit min and max columns be changed to slow, or slow/weak and fast or fast/strong needs to be considered for continuing the editorial pass for IBIS Version 3.1. IBISCHK2+ (VER 2.115) PROGRESS Matthew Flora reported that he plans to address BUGs 8-18 this weekend and work with the ibischk3 developer since development is beginning the following week. Bob Ross will post any ibischk2+ parser upgrades on eda.org. AR - Matthew Flora implement the bug fixes needed to produce ibischk2 version 2.115. VERSION 3.1 PARSER DEVELOPMENT Atul Agarwal of APT Software Avenues Pvt Ltd. plans to formally start the ibischk3 project Monday, December 8, 1997. As mentioned, Matthew Flora should communicate directly with Atul concerning updates and to help Atul become more effective. Bob Ross reported that he believes at least 8 purchase orders have been received and two more actually exist. He is correlating this with EIA. Several others may be possible. COOKBOOK No report, all the ARs are carried forward. AR - The following people have volunteered to supply examples Steve Kaufer/Hyperlynx -- Example 1 (Version 1.1 basic model) Arpad Muranyi - Example 2 Stephen Peters - Example 3 AR - Syed Huq. Review and expand (if necessary) Section 3.3. on "Obtaining I/V and Switching Information via Lab Measurement". IBISEAST MEETING Bob Ross reported off of some notes that Ed Sayre had just sent regarding the IBIS EAST Users Group meeting held on Thursday, December 4, 1997 on site at Cadence. Briefly, 23 people attended. Two sub-groups were formed. One deals with user community aspects such as IBIS to Spice, Spice to IBIS, syntax and documentation, materials for education, and standardization, etc. The second is focused on IBIS model validation, how one constructs a standard for valid model useful in system applications, how they simulate under different loading and termination conditions, etc. The plan is to make this group "open", not regionalized, but at this time working via face-to-face contact. The next meeting will be at Stratus computer on January 15, 1998. Ed may also give a presentation of the plans and activities at the IBIS Summit in January. The full minutes of the meeting will be sent out on the IBIS reflectors. MEETING ON HELPING GENERATE GOOD IBIS MODELS Bob Ross reported on a meeting on Thursday, December 4, 1997 with Bob, C. Kumar, Jon Powell, Stephen Peters, and Syed Huq. Syed had called this meeting to discuss educating semiconductor vendors on producing good IBIS models and how to deal with some flawed models that exist. Syed wanted to explore the ideas first with a small group to get some feedback and some additional ideas that would result in some actions. Bob reported that the discussion covered a variety of ideas ranging from a one day free education seminar to having the committee start "policing" or certifying sites. Bob indicated that the standard for a good IBIS model is much higher than for a Spice model where the user is expected to be knowledgeable about Spice to understand, configure (e.g., take out a built in test load) and connect the Spice model. Ideally, IBIS models should plug in just like the part itself into simulators and contain accurate and suitable information necessary for simulation and checking. The committee considered a seminar, but felt that the commitment to do it was too large considering the large number of other projects that the IBIS committee is doing. The most effective approach was to consider a process to review models and provide effective feedback to the model provider to help correct (and educate directly) what is needed for good suitable IBIS model. A number of ideas were discussed, leading to the proposal that we should ask for volunteers to form a sub-group for such a review. The action item from this meeting was to put this on the IBIS Agenda for general discussion. To start the discussion regarding setting up such a sub-group, Bob noted that there were still a variety of opinions what constituted a good IBIS model, and that the group itself would have to work this out. Part of the reason is that different simulators may need different capabilities and may deal with abnormal data in different ways. So it is possible for IBIS models to work or be suitable for some simulators, but not in others. An interactive discussion occurred covering many aspects of what the sub-group would look at and how it would function. Only a few of the points are captured here. Bob noted that he tests models by inspecting the contents, using ibischk2+, looking at the plots of the tables and doing actual simulation. Some simulators or translators do additional checks. So it would be ideal that a step in testing plug in compatibility would be to have the Model tested in several simulators. Many older IBIS models with problems were developed in environments where no IBIS simulator was available or, at best, one simulator. The only tools at the time were the evolving ibis_chk and evolving versions of s2ibis and s2ibis2 and plotting utilities. So there can be artifacts that are associated with the earlier development tools themselves that went undetected with the earlier checking processes and testing. As a more current example, a fully compliant IBIS Version 2.1 model which passes ibischk2 many still have waveform table end point data errors which are difficult to detect, but may be uncovered using ibishchk2+. Stephen Peters indicated that he had a model that he would like reviewed. D.C. Sessions also indicated that VLSI has some IBIS models for newer buffers that he would like reviewed.. However, they are available only through NDA. Furthermore, while the intent may be good, there may still be problems making such models available to what might be perceived as a "competing" semiconductor vendor for review. Bob indicated that many companies issue IBIS only directly to individuals that must not be distributed. Besides NDA processes, models are issued through direct request including including requesting a unique password for access or decryption. Since one desirable aspect of reviewing models would be to test them in a number different simulators, the most effective sub-group would be composed of simulator vendor personnel only. Then all members could, if necessary, go through the appropriate permission processes individually to get, review, and test the models. We must deal with the the reality that different companies have different policies regarding how they release IBIS models and optimize our processes accordingly. D.C. felt that this should be acceptable since it may be very difficult in some companies to issue permission to a multi-company sub-group. Further aspects of the process were mentioned. With a group composed of individuals from different simulator vendors, a model can be tested using several simulators. In reality, no semiconductor vendor is expected to have the resources directly available to the specific model developer to run it through several simulators. So the sub-group itself is a potential resource for more robust testing that is not available in practice. Furthermore good IBIS models with good data may work with some simulators and not work or be modified to work with others. This information could also be provided to the developer. Bob noted that some simulators may add even more checks than ibischk2+ such as non-monotonic checking of a summation of tables (ibischk2+ only checks one table at a time). Also some simulators have different ways for dealing with problems including rejecting the model, accepting the model or attempting to do "reasonable" adjustments. D.C. Sessions pointed out that some buffers really do have some slight non- monotonic [Pulldown] tables due to a method well-known and used in the semiconductor industry to protect the device during power-off/on cycles. The technique involves a feedback transistor to create a small current fold-back effect (less current for increasing voltage). Other points mentioned included whether IBIS Version 2.1 should be the baseline level for testing. Also, commercial model supplier vendors should really use this service since the greatest majority of models are available from such providers. The overall sense of the committee is recognize that there is a problem and to be pro active in addressing it in the most helpful method possible to provide information back to the model developer. So the action is to form a sub-group to address this issue. It should contain simulator company representatives. Bob and Matthew Flora said that they would join. It is seeking volunteers from other companies, and Matthew will be the contact person. To volunteer, contact Matthew at mbflora@hyperlynx.com. BUG19 - Warning for "typ" Data Outside "min" and "max" Paul Gregory had introduced BUG19 and there was some reflector discussion regarding it occurred. Bob Ross and others pointed out that there could be legitimate data where certain numbers fell outside the I/V table ranges. It would be a lot of work to do a thorough examination taking into account actual voltages, and Bob was concerned that we already have a lot of work in other areas. Bob classified BUG19 as an Enhancement of Low priority. After some further discussion the action is to classify this as Open, with the comment that we could do the testing only for table values where the data is ordered by definition according magnitudes into the typ, min and max columns. Examples would be C_comp, L_pkg, C_pkg, and R_pkg. No commitment was made that this enhancement would be done. BIRD42.3 - MODELING CURRENT WAVEFORMS No discussion. BIRD45 - DYNAMIC CLAMPS Bob Ross mentioned briefly that per the suggestion at the last meeting by Dave Moxley, we will still want to investigate using [Driver Selection] as part of the process. Arpad Muranyi will issue a comment on this subject on the reflector. BIRD46 - RELAXATION OF SOME IBIS FILE NAME RESTRICTIONS Bob Ross mentioned that Matthew Flora and Kelly Crisafulli had just generated BIRD46, recently issued. Bob questioned whether this was for IBIS Version 3.1 or a later version, and after some discussion concluded that it could be for Version 3.1. This will be discussed at a later meeting. NEXT MEETING: The next meeting is on Friday, January 9, 1998, 8:00 A.M. to 9:55 A.M. ============================================================================== NOTES IBIS CHAIR: Bob Ross (503) 603-2523, Fax (503) 639-3469 bob@icx.com Modeling Engineer, Interconnectix 10220 SW Nimbus Ave, K4, Portland, OR 97223 VICE CHAIR: Syed Huq (408) 721-4874, Fax: (408) 721-4785 huq@rockie.nsc.com Staff Applications Engineer, National Semiconductor, M/S A-2595 2900 Semiconductor Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95052 SECRETARY: Stephen Peters (503) 264-4108, Fax: (503) 264-4515 sjpeters@ichips.intel.com Senior Hardware Engineer, Intel Corporation M/S JF1-56 2111 NE 25th Ave. Hillsboro, Oregon 97124-5961 LIBRARIAN: Jon Powell (805) 988-8250, Fax: (805) 988-8259 jonp@qdt.com Senior Scientist, Viewlogic (formerly Quad Design) 1385 Del Norte Rd., Camarillo, CA 93010 This meeting was conducted in accordance with the EIA Legal Guides and EIA Manual of Organization and Procedure. The following e-mail addresses are used: ibis-request@eda.org To join, change, or drop from either the IBIS Open Forum Reflector (ibis@eda.org), the IBIS Users' Group Reflector (ibis-users@eda.org) or both. State your request. ibis-info@eda.org To obtain general information about IBIS, to ask specific questions for individual response, and to inquire about joining the EIA-IBIS Open Forum as a full Member. ibis@eda.org To send a message to the general IBIS Open Forum Reflector. This is used mostly for IBIS Standardization business and future IBIS technical enhancements. Job posting information is not permitted. ibis-users@eda.org To send a message to the IBIS Users' Group Reflector. This is used mostly for IBIS clarification, current modeling issues, and general user concerns. Job posting information is not permitted. ibischk-bug@eda.org To report ibischk2 parser bugs. The Bug Report Form Resides on eda.org in /pub/ibis/bugs/ibischk/bugform.txt along with reported bugs. To report s2ibis, s2ibis2 and s2iplt bugs, use the Bug Report Forms which reside under eda.org in /pub/ibis/bugs/s2ibis/bugs2i.txt, /pub/ibis/bugs/s2ibis2/bugs2i2.txt, & /pub/ibis/bugs/s2iplt/bugsplt.txt respectively. Information on IBIS technical contents, IBIS participants, and actual IBIS models are available on the IBIS Home page found by selecting the Electronic Information Group under: http://www.eia.org Check the pub/ibis directory on eda.org for more information on previous discussions and results. You can get on via FTP anonymous. "IBIS Spoken Here" placards are available from Jon Powell (jonp@qdt.com) for use at trade shows. ==============================================================================