IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 28 October 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:

- Neither Mike nor Randy are available to take minutes Nov 4
  - The meeting will be held
- Many of us will be in China Nov 11
  - There will be no meeting


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Call for patent disclosure:

- No one declared a patent.


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Review of ARs:

- John prepare summary of [External Circuit] enhancements
  - Done

- 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:

Synopsys update:
- Michael M: Nothing is new


John presented his proposal for [External Circuit] enhancements
- This is written in plain text to be BIRD compatible
- The Advanced_C_comp block interposes between the buffer and package
- In IBIS 5 we have A and D ports:
  - These are limited in IBIS 4.1
  - In all IBIS versions these are implicit
- New reserved keyword for model column of [Pin]: CIRCUITCALL
- [Node Declarations] declares extra internal nodes
- New top level keyword: [Circuit_Call]
  - Has Signal_pin parameter
  - Has Port_map parameters as needed
  - Other nodes are pin names
- Walter:
  - Does this need a different [Circuit_Call] for each pin?
    - John: Yes
  - How does pin 2 call the right [Circuit_Call]?
    - Walk through [Circuit_Call]s until one with correct Signal_pin is found
  - This will require lots of redundant data in the IBIS file
- John: This might remind people that [External Circuit] can be used
- John: It is not clear how tools will map from die pads to pins
  - Using pin names for die pads assumes 1 to 1 connections though the package
  - This is a problem when the mapping is not 1 to 1
  - Arpad: The ICM specification was expected to handle this
- Arpad: How will the tool know which model to stimulate?
  - John: Choices would be presented to the user
- Mike L: Each [Circuit Call] might be done with one line
  - Ext_Call_Name A_pcref=1 A_signal=sig (etc)
  - This would be more compact
- Walter: Intel thought they needed this capability some time ago
  - You only have to give the name of a Touchstone file
  - Designers need a lossy line without all the fuss about connections
- Michael M: Going this far we should get closer to SPICE functionality
  - John: This uses existing keywords, it is not going too far
  - Michael M: This has a lot of wrapping within wrapping to use existing keywords
    - Having signal names instead of sequence insn't enough of an advantage
  - Arpad: Something like EBD would be more standardized
- John: Should I work on making this more compact?
  - Walter: EMD already proposes a solution for this
    - It is simpler and more structurally understandable
    - Existing proposals like [Define Package Model] have burdened IBIS
    - The connectivity circuit should be external to the IBIS file
      - Touchstone integration is pure in this way
- Arpad: Should we abandon the advanced C_comp idea?
  - Walter: Using s-param for this would be simple enough to justify it
  - An external subcircuit call would be good
- Mike L: We should have prototypes to compare
- Has Walter's Final Stage proposal been posted yet?
  - Yes, it is in the Work Archive
  - No notification was sent
  - Mike L assumes authors will send personalized notifications to the mail list

Next meeting: 04 November 2008 12:00pm PT

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