IBIS Macromodel Task Group Meeting date: 02 June 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Opens: -------------------------- Call for patent disclosure: - No one declared a patent. ------------- Review of ARs: - Walter: Continue IBIS-IS edits - Done and sent to the list - Todd: Write IBIS s-param BIRD - Still working on it - 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 ------------- New Discussion: Continued review of IBIS-IS documents: Walter showed the IBIS-IS document and Arpad's comments - Walter changed all references to HSPICE-RH to HSPICE - We need to decide whether to eliminate all references to HSPICE - Walter: Comments about .ALTER, .PRINT, .PROBE were removed - Walter: Changes about {} and [] were left in - Walter: We may want a more limited character set - Some SPICEs may have problems with certain characters - Walter: We should change "avoid X" to "X is illegal" - Bob: We shouldn't be more restrictive than necessary - Walter: For example, the minus sign in node names - Walter marked this for later discussion - Walter: Anything illegal in HSPICE is illegal in IBIS-IS - "Included only" means legal but not as the first character of a name - The "First line of a netlist" rule was deleted - IBIS-IS has no main level netlists - Arpad: Will we need the I element? - Walter: It is not needed for interconnect - Bob: We included V because it is used for controlled sources - Walter: Actually it is used for shorting - Bob: And it can be used for current sources - Walter: Hierarchical node names are not allowed - Walter: Diodes and transistors are not supported - Walter: X is a synonym for MEG - Bob: We should support that - Files should not be rejected for having minor discrepancies - MIL is also a supported scaling unit (= 25.4e-6) - Walter: We will not support .OPTION EXPMAX - Arpad: That might be an issue - Walter: We should discuss the option needs of simulators - Arpad: Will our subckts need to specify options? - Michael M: We should not allow that - We should discuss this once we are sure what EXPMAX is intended for - Walter: PARHIER is not supported - Arpad: This might break some legitimate circuits - Walter: Agree, this needs discussion - Rules regarding multiple definitions of the same parameter: - Walter deleted "or .OPTION statement" - Also deleted the sentence about simulator warnings - Walter: The entire section about schematic netlists is deleted - Also deleted hierarchy parameters and the M parameter - Arpad: The M parameter connects M number of elements in parallel - It was used for transistor sizing - Mike L: It seems easy to pre-process this - Walter left the M parameter provision in - Walter: We rarely see .PARAM in interconnect - Arpad: It can be useful for long expressions that are used repeatedly - Arpad: Do we support string parameters? - These were introduced for elements that take string args - We may not need it - Walter made changes to the parameter passing order table: - We will not have SWEEP parameters - We will not have library parameters - Walter: We will not support user defined functions - Some built-in functions are also deleted: - val - relational operators - Walter: HSPICE has at least 2 conditional mechanisms: - The .if/.else mechanism - Operator conditionals - Bob: Did we keep the conditionals? - Walter: No - Arpad: We should keep the ternary operator - Walter: Then we need the conditionals too - Mike L: This can create non-linearities - Walter: But it is evaluated statically - Bob: Conditionals are used only in expressions - Arpad: Conditionals can change a value at points in time - Mike L: But that conflicts with the "static evaluation" rule - Walter restored the conditional operators - Walter deleted paragraphs about "cells" - We will have to discuss the section on Library Integrity - It gives rules that are useful We revisited parameter hierarchy: - Walter restored deleted rules on this Arpad asked members to take time to review the IBIS-IS document Mike L asked if we picked up any new items for the wish list - None identified Next meeting: 9 June 2009 12:00pm PT -------- IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List: 1) Simulator directives