IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 09 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

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Opens:

- Arpad: Walter is unable to join us today

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Call for patent disclosure:

- No one declared a patent.

-------------
Review of ARs:

- 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:

Arpad: We had set a goal to have the IBIS-IS ready by the DAC Summit
- Bob: It should be possible to present on it by then
- Arpad: Walter sent an email saying it was close to ready

Arpad: There were some items that we put off in the last meeting

Arpad: Walter suggested we get a list of companies committing to IBIS-IS support
- Bob: Vendors only need to say if they support HSPICE syntax
  - Most do in some form
  - It is out of bounds to discuss vendor business plans in IBIS meetings
- Arpad: The question is if tools for bringing in IBIS files will support it
  - Bob: IBIS needs EMD or something to do this anyway
- John: We could list companies working on the proposal
  - We don't want to imply the committee process is redundant
  - Mike: That is all we had for ICM
- Arpad: Walter is concerned about working on something that might not be supported
- Bob: There should be no need for vendor tools to check that incoming files
  have only the specific IBIS-IS subset of HSPICE
  - Arpad: Some vendors may need to make adjustments, not disable features
- Mike: There is currently no way to use IBIS-IS with IBIS
  - Vendors have no specific implementation to sign up for
  - Could IBIS-IS be the 4th language for [External Circuit]?
- Arpad: We were unable to make HSPICE the 4th language previously
  - It has too much proprietary content
  - But IBIS-IS can be the 4th language because it is a subset
- We decided not to have a formal "signup sheet" denoting IBIS-IS support

Arpad: We left some topics TBD
- Items like:
  - Dropping options like PARHIER
  - Functions
  - Ternary operator
  - Library integrity
- There was no final decision on these
- These need to be resolved before we take it to the Open Forum
- We need to have final decisions on these before moving on
- Bob: If we allow many options people will need a real HSPICE license

Arpad: Should we eliminate all references to HSPICE?
- We should because we want an independent specification
- Mike: Synopsys may want that anyway
- Bob: We could replace it with IBIS-IS
- Mike: Is IBIS-IS the official name?
  - Arpad: Walter wanted "subcircuit" in the name somehow
  - Bob: IBIS-IS seems like a good name
- We decided to replace HSPICE references with our own name

Arpad: We need to decide on a character set
- Bob: Some tools will have to translate from one spice to another
- Arpad: We should keep what HSPICE does
  - For example, some names have minus signs
  - Bob: Customers often have to deal with these problems
- Mike: The minus sign restriction was only in some certain place
  - We don't have the IBIS-IS open right now
- Arpad: Minus means something different in an expression vs. a name
  - A well designed syntax will not have issues with this
- Arpad showed the IBIS-IS page on special characters
- Arpad: The rules here seem to make sense, causing no conflicts
  - Mike: Other simulators can simply translate to other characters as needed
- We decided to keep the HSPICE special character table as it stands

Next meeting: 16 June 2009 12:00pm PT

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives