Minutes, IBIS Quality Task Group

29 September 2020

11:00-12:00 EST (08:00-09:00 PST)

ROLL CALL

Achronix Semiconductor:           * Hansel Dsilva
Intel Corp.                         Michael Mirmak
Mentor, a Siemens Business          Arpad Muranyi
Micron Technology                 * Randy Wolff
Signal Integrity Software:        * Mike LaBonte
SPISim                              Wei-hsing Huang
Teraspeed Labs:                   * Bob Ross
Zuken USA:                        * Lance Wang
SAE ITC                           * José Godoy

Everyone in attendance marked by *

NOTE: "AR" = Action Required.

-----------------------MINUTES ---------------------------
Mike LaBonte conducted the meeting.

Call for IBIS related patent disclosures:

- None

Call for opens:

- José Godoy said he had joined to insure that the new Microsoft Teams meeting setup was working well.
- Mike LaBonte showed an article featuring Bob Ross.
  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.electronicdesign.com_technologies_analog_article_21807815_whats-2Dall-2Dthis-2Dtcoil-2Dstuff-2Danyhow&d=DwIGaQ&c=nKjWec2b6R0mOyPaz7xtfQ&r=DcQR-qLpQg5lIreuM6-NYECRIAFXt268PRNS5WO043M&m=DTmZ-28AyxijNcB5vGFmqvTbX5uoU3y1dGnGRbLGBc0&s=8Sk-rVuL4fJ_T7Cu_bariG-fKL6XWHMj6I-LDR6WkAI&e= 


Review of previous meeting minutes:
Minutes from the September 22 meeting were reviewed.  Lance Wang moved to approve.
Randy Wolff seconded.  Without objection the minutes were approved.


ARs:
- Mike LaBonte to write IBISCHK enhancement bug report for IBIS-ISS checking
  - Not done

New parser bugs:
Bob Ross reported there were no new bug reports.


IBIS-ISS parser:
We discussed the list of checks that should go into the bug report.
- Existence of subcircuits matching the name referenced in [Interconnect Model].
- Subcircuits have number of terminals matching [Interconnect Model] Number_of_Terminals.
  Mike LaBonte asked if the subcircuit could have more terminals than required.
  Bob Ross said that was true for TS, not ISS.
  Bob said we also allowed node 0 inside subcircuits, despite some objections.
  Randy Wolff said that was the only way to get it right in some cases.
- It must read .include files encountered and continue parsing.
  Mike said this could be done either on the fly, or by reading into memory.  In the
  future we might want the full parser that stores everything in memory.  Randy verified
  that .include was supported.  Mike said the parser could be written with no memory
  storage if it were invoked for each IBIS-ISS file to be checked.  Even if the same
  file were repeatedly parsed, performance should be good enough.  The parser would
  stop reading once it found the expected subcircuit.  Randy asked about the problem
  of finding two subcircuits with the same name.  Mike said the parser could continue
  to look for those.
- Randy felt element set checking might be saved for a later update.
  Mike felt the effort without that would be small.
  Bob said we would need a separate parser for standalone ISS checking.
  Mike said ibischk could simply have a -iss option for that.
  Randy said full parsing would take a lot, simple element checking would be OK.
- Mike suggested that parameter names should be checked for IBIS-ISS compatibility. He
  felt using parameters supported by some simulator but not IBIS-ISS might be a common
  mistake.
- Bob suggested we should do something to check the Touchstone files referenced by
  [Interconnect Model], at least check that the Number_of_Terminals are supported.
  With Touchstone 1 the terminals were not declared. Mike asked how much of a Touchstone 1
  file would have to be read to know the number of terminals.  Bob described various
  Touchstone format issues.  He suggested we could use tschk2 to convert Touchstone 1
  to Touchstone 2 for checking.  Mike described how a -tschk ibischk option would
  work. It would give the path to the tschk2 executable, which ibischk would run
  to have Touchstone files checked for syntax and converted for port map checking.
  Bob suggested we could add the tschk2 code into ibischk.  Mike said there could be
  C/C++ conflicts, and pricing of source code for the new merged product would have
  to be worked out.  Bob suggested if we had Touchstone checking, it could also be
  used to check S4P files referenced in IBIS-AMI files.

Bob felt not all of the discussed feature need be in the initial bug report. Mike felt
it would be easy to write them all in and possibly chop some in discussion. That way
we would have material for future enhancements.

Tabled topics (no discussion without motion):
  - BIRD181.2


Randy Wolff moved to adjourn. Lance Wang seconded. Without objection the meeting ended.

Meeting ended: 11:48 ET

Next meeting October 6, 2020