Minutes, IBIS Quality Task Group

4 May 2021

12:00-13:00 EST (09:00-10:00 PST)

ROLL CALL

Intel Technology                    Michael Mirmak
Micron Technology                 * Randy Wolff
Signal Integrity Software:        * Mike LaBonte
Teraspeed Labs:                   * Bob Ross
Zuken USA:                          Lance Wang

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 April 27, 2021 meetings were reviewed.  Bob Ross moved to accept
the minutes. Randy Wolff seconded.  Without objection the minutes were approved.


ARs:
- Randy Wolff to suggest BUG216 clarification to Editorial Task Group
  - Done.
- Mike LaBonte to fix erratic number formatting in TSCHK2 output
  - In progress
- Mike LaBonte to add output size option to TSCHK2 alpha5
  - Mike reported he had resumed work on this.


NEW ITEMS:

New parser bug reports:
Bob Ross said BUG216 had been effectively transferred to the Editorial group.
Michael Mirmak might write a BIRD.  The bug was classified as WONT FIX.


IBISCHK development:
Bob Ross reported the developer had quoted $17,500 for all work in the draft contract
sent by Bob.  Bob gave the hour estimates for the three top level activities.  Bob said
if we decided to split up the first and second parts, the third part could not be
easily allocated partially to each.  He said if the IBIS-ISS work was done first,
some changes would be needed when the IBIS 7.1 work was done.  Bob suggested doing the
IBIS 7.1 work first, and getting a partial release.  A partial payment could be made,
but Bob was not sure if SAE ITC could support multiple payments for one contract.  Mike
LaBonte felt it would be easier to split the contract into two contracts in that case.
Randy Wolff felt we should stick with the single contract.  Bob suggested starting work
on the full contract, noting some BIRDs were not yet approved.  Mike felt it should be
easy to schedule the more uncertain changes to be addressed last.  He asked which IBIS
7.1 changes impacted IBIS-ISS and Touchstone linkage checks.  Bob said EMD was a big
addition to that.  Mike suggested that an interim payment could be written into the
contract, but that might incur another legal review.  Bob said it was an 11 week quote.

Randy said we could introduce the contract in the May 14 Open Forum meeting and
schedule a vote for June 4.  Mike said work starting in mid June might end in mid
August or September, based on the estimate.  He asked when IBIS 7.1 ratification might
be expected.  The status of various open BIRDs was discussed.

Randy suggested introducing a motion to vote on the development in the next IBIS
Open Forum.  This was agreed.

Randy said a parser issue was mentioned in the previous Editorial Task Group meeting
about the IBISCHK message "Keyword must begin in column 1".  Some people felt that was
not clear enough.  Mike felt that changing that message would be a very small addition
to the upcoming development.  He said the term "column" might hearken back to FORTRAN
terminology that might have been more common at the onset of IBISCHK development.
A better message might have "No whitespace shall appear on the line before a keyword" or
"The keyword must appear at the beginning of a line".  Bob said the IBIS specification
itself might have the "column" language.


TSCHK 2.0.1 development:
Mike showed the help output from his modified tschk program, with an added -spacing
option.  This could have either of two values, "aligned" or "compact".  Mike said
"aligned" would be like the current -canonical output, which used extra zeros and
spaces to form neat columns.  With the "compact" setting numbers would be as short as
the precision setting allowed, and would be separated by only one space.  Bob asked
why the two values for -precision were separated by a comma.  He suggested having two
separate options -freqPrecision and -dataPrecision.  Mike felt that would make sense.

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


Randy Wolff moved to adjourn. Bob Ross seconded. Without objection the meeting ended.

Meeting ended: 13:02 ET

Next meeting May 11, 2021