IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 14 April 2009

Members (asterisk for those attending):
  Adge Hawes, IBM
  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
  Chris McGrath, Synopsys
  David Banas, Xilinx
* Deepak Ramaswany, Ansoft
  Donald Telian, consultant
  Doug White, Cisco Systems
* Eckhard Lenski, Nokia-Siemens Networks
  Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics
  Fangyi Rao, Agilent
  Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro
  Gang Kang, Sigrity
  Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems
  Ian Dodd, Agilent
  Jerry Chuang, Xilinx
  Joe Abler, IBM
* John Angulo, Mentor Graphics
  John Shields, Mentor Graphics
  Ken Willis, Cadence Design Systems
  Kumar Keshavan, Sigrity
  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
* Samuel Mertens, Ansoft
  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
  Ted Mido, Synopsys
  Terry Jernberg, Cadence Design Systems
  Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft
  Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov
  Vikas Gupta, Xilinx
  Vuk Borich, Agilent
* Walter Katz, SiSoft
  Zhen Mu, Cadence Design Systems

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Opens:

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Call for patent disclosure:

- No one declared a patent.

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Review of ARs:

- Todd: Write IBIS s-param BIRD
  - Still working on it
  - It may be done in 2 weeks or so

- 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:

Samuel Mertens presented on the Compact Modeling Council (CMC):
- Slide 1:
  - CMC work has gone on for about a year
- Slide 2:
  - Various transistor models have been standardized
  - Work was done in conjunction with a university
  - Bob: Which standards bodies are involved?
    - CMC, under GEIA
  - There are 44 member companies
  - There are regular phone meetings
  - Samuel is the committee chair
- Slide 3:
  - The lang= directive incorporates existing languages
  - It allows a block to be written in a language outside the standard
- Slide 4:
  - This shows a list of companies
- Slide 5:
  - Candidates for the base language:
    - Spectre
    - Verilog A
  - Cadence will not allow CMC to direct the Spectre language
  - Bob: Cadence is not on the vendor list
    - Samuel: It is only a partial list
  - Bob: Is the committee favoring Spectre or Verilog A?
    - Samuel: Spectre may be a little ahead
  - Arpad: Is there any consideration of AMS languages?
    - Samuel: No, but there could be interfaces
    - It is being designed for flexibility
- Slide 6:
  - Berkeley Spice is not defined by a formal grammar
  - The standard language must be case-sensitive
  - Bob: Does formal mean having a BNF?
    - Samuel: We have not decided
  - We will not allow positional arguments except the terminal list
  - No key letter ID is allowed
  - Currently there will be problems using multiple technology files
  - Arpad: This seems to go beyond Spice
    - Samuel: Every circuit is Spice-like
- Slide 7:
  - The plan is to choose the base language by Q2-2009
  - The plan is to release by Q4 2009
- Slide 8:
  - Do we want to work on this?
  - What elements would we want to add?
  - Arpad: We would need S and W elements
  - Mike L: IBIS could be a B element or built from other elements
  - Arpad: Behavioral modeling would be important to us
    - Samuel: This can be used for digital elements
    - Arpad: That raises the complexity, adding boolean nodes for example
  - Bob: IBIS support may mean reading IBIS files or just equivalent circuits
    - The IBIS format is just a collection of data
  - Samuel: We are interested in working together on this
  - Arpad: Board and IC tools describe footprints in different ways
    - It might be nice to address board features too
    - Samuel: With a new language spec we have this flexibility

- Bob: Why would other tools want to support this?
  - They make money from having their own languages
  - Samuel: Customers want to save money by using only one language
    - Ansoft would only have to support one language
    - Design kit makers might adopt this
    - Tools would be forced to support it
- Arpad: If this becomes widespread among IC makers it will need IP protection
  - Samuel: There will be an API standard for proprietary models
- Arpad: How about encryption?
  - Samuel: It is hard to talk about this until we have the language
- Walter: Who is on the core committee for this?
  - Samuel: ADI, Agilent, Ansoft, Cypress, Freescale, IBM, Cadence, NXP
- Mike L: If someone wants to "bridge" the groups they would need contact info:
  - smertens@ansoft.com
  - Samuel: I could present status updates now and then
- Arpad: Is the time-line realistic for such a large group?
  - Samuel: I am hopeful, there is great interest
- Walter: Are there confidentiality issues in your meetings?
  - Samuel: Historically not much, but there is potential
    - Not everything is open to all members at all times
- Bob: Are draft documents ready?
  - Samuel: We have drafts in both languages
- Arpad: We might be able to work together only if interconnect is involved
  - Samuel: Interconnect has simple requirements
  - Arpad: There might be physical models too
  - Walter: It comes down to elements, nodes, parameters, and models
- Arpad: Why don't we go with this?
  - Bob: We must consider future penetration
- Arpad: When might we see a tool using this?
- Mike L: HSPICE gives multiple ways to do things, is that what we wanted?
  - Walter: Even Ansoft generates HSPICE, and we wanted that compatibility
    - If we go down a new path there will be no tools to generate models
- Bob: We might want to have a liaison

Next meeting: 21 April 2009 12:00pm PT

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