IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 23 Oct 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:

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Review of ARs:

- Arpad will forward Walter's email regarding differential parameters to the group.  All should comment via the mailer.
  - Done

- Todd will send update of SiSoft IBIS AMI toolkit.  Changes:  Easier to use, all I/O files can be .csv, updated program to generate patterns, etc.
  - Done

- Cadence provide Windows version of AMI DLL
  - TBD

- SiSoft will propose a new reserved_parameter keyword table
  - TBD

- 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
  - Steve Pytel has tentatively agreed to attend and discuss.
  - Arpad will try and contact Rich Mellitz to get him to attend this meeting.

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

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New Discussion:

Arpad described confusion over the scheduling of EDA vendor meetings.
- He missed one meeting.
- He tried dialing into other meetings but no one was there.

Discussion of ICM proposal
- Michael Mirmak suggested leaving this discussion for the IBIS meeting
  this Friday
- Arpad: we should be able to call legacy IBIS buffers
  - John: stacked dies require multiple wires pads per pin, 4.1 syntax required
  - ICM can "reach into the die" since pads are named
- Mirmak: we can let the IBIS open forum know that EDA vendors are willing
  to support this using IBIS 4.1 features without AMS
- Walter: Interconnect between silicon can be complicated
  - Should have separate description of package and silicon to mate together
  - Arpad: may be better to call buffers from ICM file than to call ICM
    from IBIS
  - Walter: silicon can have more power and ground than package does
    - It's not one calling the other, just 2 connected items
    - Would be like EBD
    - Should be 3 sections in one file:
      - silicon
      - package
      - mating info
    - Mirmak: this is like SPICE
- ICM can describe power delivery, with limitations
- Walter: we should consider what chip companies are willing to deliver
  - What are user's needs?
- Mirmak: this is totally new, not an adaptation of what we have
- Arpad: who would get together to discuss this?
  - Walter: ask the IBIS open forum

Bob registered concern about references to ANSI C in the AMI BIRD
- Wikipedia definition refers to original C language
- We should be more precise in our language
- Walter: C uses conditional macros to handle platform dependence

AR: Bob send email about precision of ANSI C reference

Discussion of Differential "Rules" email:
- Walter: We should make a list of the rules we want
- Mirmak: Same physical interconnect can carry different speeds
  - Need different BER rules for different bit time scenarios
- Walter: Would be nice to use our defined parameter syntax
  - We may want to have an external rules file
- Arpad: bothered to be using single-ended [Model] for differential
- Walter proposed "[Diff Model] yxz" to contain diff info
  - Name would match corresponding "[Model] xyz"
  - Name would correspond to active high side model of diff pair
  - True differential model info could go here
- Arpad: If both [Model] and [Diff Model] with same name exists, how
  to tell if [Diff Model] adds onto [Model] or is exclusive
  - Bob: use [Model Selector] to choose different names for true diff
    and pseudo-diff use
- Walter clarified meaning of "truly" differential and pseudo-diff.

AR: Walter will try to formulate an extension of [Diff Model]

AR: Walter will start BIRD for scenario-based parameters

Next meeting: 30 Oct 2007 12:00pm PT