IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 12 August 2008

Members (asterisk for those attending):
  Ambrish Varma, Cadence Design Systems
  Anders Ekholm, Ericsson
* Arpad Muranyi, Mentor Graphics Corp.
  Barry Katz, SiSoft
* Bob Ross, Teraspeed Consulting Group
  Brad Brim, Sigrity
  Brad Griffin, Cadence Design Systems
  David Banas, Xilinx
  Donald Telian, consultant
  Doug White, Cisco Systems
  Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics
  Fangyi Rao, Agilent
  Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro
  Gang Kang, Sigrity
  Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems
  Ian Dodd, Agilent
  Joe Abler, IBM
* John Angulo, Mentor Graphics
  John Shields, Mentor Graphics
  Ken Willis, Cadence Design Systems
  Kumar
  Lance Wang, Cadence Design Systems
  Luis Boluna, Cisco Systems
* Michael Mirmak, Intel Corp.
* Mike LaBonte, Cisco Systems
  Mike Steinberger, SiSoft
  Mustansir Fanaswalla, Xilinx
  Patrick O'Halloran, Tiburon Design Automation
  Paul Fernando, NCSU
* Pavani Jella, TI
* Radek Biernacki, Agilent (EESof)
* Randy Wolff, Micron Technology
  Ray Comeau, Cadence Design Systems
  Richard Mellitz, Intel
  Richard Ward, Texas Instruments
  Sam Chitwood, Sigrity
  Sanjeev Gupta, Agilent
  Shangli Wu, Cadence Design Systems
* Sid Singh, Extreme Networks
  Stephen Scearce, Cisco Systems
  Steve Pytel, Ansoft
  Syed Huq, Cisco Systems
  Syed Sadeghi, ST Micro
  Terry Jernberg, Cadence Design Systems
  Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft
  Vikas Gupta, Xilinx
  Vuk Borich, Agilent
* Walter Katz, SiSoft
  Zhen Mu, Cadence Design Systems


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Opens:

- none

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Call for patent disclosure:

- No one declared a patent.


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Review of ARs:

- Todd and Michael M contact Synopsys about HSPICE legal issues
  - TBD

- Arpad prepare an IBIS-EBD improvement list
  - In progress

- David Banas report Xilinx position on LTI assumption for SerDes
  - No update

- Arpad:  Write parameter passing syntax proposal (BIRD draft)
          for *-AMS models in IBIS that is consistent with the
          parameter passing syntax of the AMI models
          - TBD

- TBD:    Propose a parameter passing syntax for the SPICE
          - [External ...] also?
          - TBD

- Arpad:  Review the documentation (annotation) in the macro libraries.
          - Deferred until a demand arises or we have nothing else to do

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New Discussion:

Feedback on Walter's Berkeley SPICE element list
- This is designed for interconnect modeling
- Arpad: The devil is in the details
  - Walter: Controlled sources are linear, for example

Discussion of IBIS-EBD keywords
- Arpad: In previous meetings we explored the details of the EMD proposal.
  - Some misunderstandings were cleared up.
- Arpad wrote an example extended EBD
- Each keyword has [Begin ...] and [End ...]
- [Terminal List] has outside connections
- Parameter declarations having scoping similar to SPICE
- [Begin View] different from EMD style
  - Each view can have contents of different complexity
- Mike L: Do we need a policy for default view, like [Model Selector]?
  - Walter: Each [Model Selector] choice represents different behavior
    - [View] is a different model for the same behavior
  - Arpad: The instances declare a [View] anyway
- [Ref Des List] can call several file types
  - Bob: New EBD format would need a new extension
- [Diff Pin List] and [Extended Net List] need more work
- Instance examples are different versions of the same thing
  - Name can be arbitrary (first letter doesn't matter)
  - Mike: Can module instantiate itself?
    - That could cause recursion problems
    - Arpad: We could allow multiple [Module]s in file
      - A module could call others
- A GUI owuld be useful for InstanceName, ModuleName, ViewName
- Terminal_Map assigns node names by position
  - Have to start at first node, although list could be truncated if
    not all temrinals have to be connected
  - Node name left of = is local name inside module
  - Node name right of = is remote name in called module
- Parameter_Map does the same for params
- [Connectivity] establishes equivalent node names
  - Maps names inside called module to calling module
  - Board layouts will have their own names, for example
- John: Are the nodes on right side of = in [Connectivity] defined elsewhere?
- Walter: Why expose contents of called subckts?
  - This is an unnecessary complication
  - Arpad: This is a deviation from EMD
    - Want to retain capability to describe netlists
  - Mike L: This seems to violate black box principle of protecting contents
    - Arpad: A layout has only pin names, no ordered terminal list
    - Walter: Layout tools can make an ordered list file
    - Arpad: We need to have a file standard
  - Mike L: This file format could define a top level keyword for the
    ordered terminal lists
- Arpad: Do we want an IBIS SPICE?
  - John and Walter like that
- Arpad will clean up the document for posting.

AR: Arpad send  IBIS-EBD document to Mike L for posting

Next meeting: 19 August 2008 12:00pm PT

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