IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 26 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:

Michael M: IBIS is trying to arrange for a 5.0 press release:
- It may be approved this Friday
- We need a brief official description of AMI
- We looked at the AMI BIRD:
  - No brief description is obvious
- Should be 2 or 3 sentences:
  - Probably can't accomodate quotes from several companies
  - Maybe we could have a quote from the chair
- We will work on this by email


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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
  - Done

- Arpad prepare an IBIS-EBD improvement list
  - Mostly done now

- 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:

HSPICE documentation legal issues:
- Todd and Michael M contacted Sysopsys:
- Proposed using HSPICE syntax documentation for IBIS-SPICE.
- Portions of the HSPICE manuals would be used.
- Todd: Synopsys may have been confused by what we were asking.
- Bob: We should be able to modify the donated text as needed
  - Mike: We may have to eliminate HSPICE-specific .option usage
- Arpad: Why can't we just point to their docs instead of embedding?
  - Michael M: We only need a subset of their language:
    - HSPICE is a defacto standard, so many will already be familiar.
    - We would do this to make the format easily understood.
- Todd: Are there any bounds on how much we want to use?
  - Michael M: We need:
    - Element names, nodal representation
    - Parameter passing
    - A certain subset list, only enough for interconnect
  - We don't need:
    - Controlled sources
    - Active elements
    - Transistors
    - .model
      - Arpad: .model is used for W, which we plan to use
- Michael M: Synopsys is open to the idea but needs more discussion.
- Todd: They may have thought we are trying to standardize HSPICE.
- Michael M: It is important to clarify that we may change it at any time.
- Arpad: Again, why not start with Berkeley SPICE?
  - Michael M: Berkeley SPICE is limited to numeric nodes.
- Arpad: Will Synopsys accept competitors being involved in this?
  - Michael M: There are probably restrictions on manual use that applt to all.
  - Some universitiess have posted the HSPICE manuals online.
- Mike L: HSPICE users should not accidentally find our document on the web
  - We should not use "HSPICE" anywhere in it.
  - Each page should be clearly labeled with our own title.

Refining the set of elements for IBIS-SPICE
- Walter: Berkeley source documents are easier to work with than HSPICE PDFs
  - We should get source from Synopsys
  - Right now we can still determine the element letter set
- Michael M: We know we want
  - elem type
  - arbitrary length
    - Arpad: There are length limitations
    - We follow what Synopsys does
  - values can be alpha, not just real
- Bob: Do we require single quotes for param values
- Do we support expressions?
  - Arpad: Supporting dynamic expressions will be a problem
  - Dynamic capacitance?
    - Not for interconnect
- Arpad: Do we limit this to interconnect?
  - Bob: This should be general purpose
  - Mike L: If we are too general we will get bogged down
  - Michael M: We could see how far we would go, to decide whether to limit
    to interconnect
    - There would be a separate meeting for this.
    - Arpad: It is hard to predict what people will need.
    - Todd: We got AMI done because we knew what the goal was
      - Here we are moving ahead without a mission statement.
  - Bob: Interconnect links to other modules
    - Todd: This language will not be used for modules.
  - Bob: May have s-param module
    - Michael M: An s-param model may have gain
      - Technically it may not be passive.
      - But it is still interconnect.
  - Arpad: The LTI assumption assures that expressions are evaluated pre-sim
- Michael M: We need to resolve the high level principles in the next meeting
  - Arpad: What changes does Walter's document need?
  - Michael M: Let's look at the minutes first

Next meeting: 02 September 2008 12:00pm PT

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