Minutes, IBIS Quality Task Group

17 November 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:

- None

Review of previous meeting minutes:
Minutes from the November 10 meeting had not been sent.  Mike LaBonte said we would
have two minutes documents to review in the next meeting.


ARs:
- Mike LaBonte to research alternative common names for "multipliers"
  - Done. The common term was "scaling prefix".

- Bob Ross to determine if IBIS-ISS S element accepts variables as file names
  - Not done


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


IBIS-ISS parser:
Mike LaBonte showed https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.mathworks.com_help_symbolic_units-2Dlist.html&d=DwIGAw&c=nKjWec2b6R0mOyPaz7xtfQ&r=DcQR-qLpQg5lIreuM6-NYECRIAFXt268PRNS5WO043M&m=j4f5KMutW3fDXSzsWVNhjoEXufTB8NHAxtjd_8op-Dk&s=tj4QNLgddl_wvxzgnVsot-0sBYo3E_cTnnm545eqJxQ&e= 
That page used the term "SI unit prefixes".  Mike noted that for IBIS these letters are
a suffix to the numbers, but in common usage they are considered a prefix to the units.

Mike iterated all related references that he had found:
- The IBIS 7.0 syntax rules in section 3.2 on page 16 used "scaling factor".
  That section had:
    "When no scaling factor is specified, the appropriate base units are assumed.
     (These are volts, amperes, ohms, farads, Henrys, and seconds.) The parser looks
     at only one alphabetic character after a numerical entry. Therefore, it is enough
     to use only the prefixes to scale the parameters."
- Page 167 had:
    "As such, it is permissible to use multiplier “suffix” notation".
- Page 213 had:
    "Scaling factors or suffixes, such as p, n, etc., are not permitted in the AMI
     parameter definition file".
- Page 301 had:
    "... scaling conventions in Section 3.2".

Mike suggested using "scaling factors" instead of "multipliers".  Bob said the units
could be ignored, they were there to make things more readable.  He said ambiguous
expressions like "5a" should not be used; that could be taken as either 5 amps or
5 atto.  He said the developer had to be aware of this.  Mike agreed that in general
tools would usually tolerate but ignore units when specified.  Bob noted that IBIS
gave examples like "5A" in which "A" was amperes, not to be treated as atto.

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

Mike LaBonte moved to adjourn. Lance Wang seconded. Without objection the meeting ended.

Meeting ended: 11:28 ET

Next meeting November 17, 2020