IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 25 Sept 2007

Members (asterisk for those attending):
* Ambrish Varma, Cadence Design Systems
* Arpad Muranyi, Mentor Graphics Corp.
  Barry Katz, SiSoft
* Bob Ross, Teraspeed Consulting Group
  David Banas, Xilinx
  Donald Telian, consultant
* Doug White, Cisco Systems
  Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics
  Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro
* Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems
* Ian Dodd
  Joe Abler, IBM
* John Angulo, Mentor Graphics
  John Shields, Mentor Graphics
  Ken Willis, Cadence Design Systems
* Kumar, Cadence Design Systems
  Lance Wang, Cadence Design Systems
  Luis Boluna, Cisco
* Michael Mirmak, Intel Corp.
* Mike LaBonte, Cisco Systems
* Mike Steinberger, SiSoft
  Patrick O'Halloran, Tiburon Design Automation
  Paul Fernando, NCSU
* Radek Biernacki, Agilent (EESof)
* Randy Wolff, Micron Technology
  Ray Comeau, Cadence Design Systems
  Richard Ward, Texas Instruments
  Sanjeev Gupta, Agilent
  Shangli Wu, Cadence
  Stephen Scearce, Cisco Systems
  Syed Huq, Cisco Systems
  Syed Sadeghi, ST Micro
* Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft
  Vikas Gupta, Xilinx
  Vuk Borich, Agilent
* Walter Katz, SiSoft

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Call for patent disclosure:

No one declared a patent.

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Opens:

- Discussion of "mid-air collision" email thread.

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Review of ARs:

- SiSoft will propose a new reserved_parameter keyword table
  - Existing table still needs to be converted to text format.

- Write parameter passing syntax proposal for a possible BIRD
  a) Propose a parameter passing syntax for AMI models
  b) IBIS spec should allow parameter value assignment for
     *-AMS using a syntax that is consistent with the
     parameter passing syntax of the AMI models
  c) Allow parameter passing for SPICE [External ...] also?
     - Berkeley SPICE does not handle paraeters at all.
     - Walter proposed handling this with a preprocessor

- Ian: send relevant papers on related IEEE work
  - TBD

- Doug will attempt to get Steve Pytel (Ansoft) and/or 
  Rich Mellitz to discuss upcoming paper regarding LTI
  assumptions wrt Serdes
  - TBD

- Arpad: Review the new macro library files.
  - TBD

- Ambrish post a new AMI toolkit version.
  - Done
  - Want to take out interoperability test results from toolkit.
  - A newer version will be uploaded today.

- Ambrish will update the BIRD, resend by Friday, everyone should review,
  and we'll go over this next meeting
  - Done

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New Discussion:

Review of AMI Draft BIRD ver 1.5:
- Format of Platform_Compiler_Bits was explained.
  - Has 3 parts separated by underscore.
- Ian asked how tool will know which runtime lib is required
  - Mike S. recommended static linking, even though it takes more space
  - The Windows runtime DLL is about 100kB, Linux less
- Bob suggested adding HPUX
  - Ambrish said that this is not a list of reserved names.
  - Bob said EDA tools would have to guess by looking at the words.
  - Ambrish said EDA vendors would specify the words they would recognize.
  - Mike L. suggested using the #define macros defined by each compiler.
  - Walter suggested that EDA companies list platforms they will support.
  - Radek was concerned about the number of versions IC makers would have to 
    support.
- Radek suggested separating the 3 Platform_Compiler_Bits parts with spaces
  instead of underscores
  - Might want to support more than 3 parts
- Bob suggested not allowing duplicate Executable parameters
- Ambrish said Description should not be a reserved parameter.
- Regarding the DataType table, Mike S. said that if a Model can not be
  In then it can not be InOut.
- Ambrish encouraged everyone to review the document further.
- Bob suggested using uppercase consistently for data_type values.
- Bob suggested changing (sampleAMI so it doesn't look like a reserved word.
- Walter suggested adding a README section that tools would show the user
  - Ambrish said the keyword should be Description
- Bob noted that minor editorial problems can be corrected after submission.
- Arpad asked when the Rx section would be added.
  - It needs to be converted to text

AR: Radek write new proposal for Platform_Compiler_Bits

When can the AMI BIRD be submitted?
- Will have to review by email.
  - Walter said it is hard to tell what is agreed by email
- Ambrish can have it out by Thursday

Next meeting: 02 Oct 2007 12:00pm PT