IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 14 July 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, consultant
  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:

- Arpad contact Cadence to check on making Model_Specific optional
  - Done
  - Ambrish replied
  - Not sure if the reply has been relayed to the parser developer

- Arpad write a BIRD to clarify time period accuracy requirements
  - TBD

- Todd: Write IBIS s-param BIRD
  - Discussed today

- 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:

Todd discussed the IBIS-IS release with Synopsys:
- One update was suggested relative to referencing HSPICE

AR: Todd ask Synopsys about public posting of the document

Walter showed the IBIS-IS presentation for the IBIS Summit:
- Slide 3:
  - Arpad: ICM may be sufficient over 1Gbps
  - Walter: A 300 pin package would need an impractical s-param size
    - We need sparse s-params for that
  - Arpad: That is an ICM question
  - Radek: The title of this slide can be changed a little
  - Walter changed the slide title adding "for large systems operating at ..."
  - Bob: Vendors make different claims about what can be handled
  - Todd: We are not successful with what is available today
  - John: ICM can handle >1 Gbps, but not with Touchstone
  - Bob: It can be done with multi-lingual model
  - Walter: IBIS can not even do it with 4 pins
  - John: [External Circuit] can call s-param
  - Walter: That is not IBIS compliant
  - Arpad: We need to revisit this later
  - We accepted the title as edited
- Slide 4:
  - Walter: We should change "graciously agreed" to "we would like to thank"
  - Todd: We don't need bullet 4
  - Bullet 4 was deleted
  - Todd: the (R) needs to be superscript
    - Walter will deal with that later
- Slide 5:
  - Arpad: The G element is listed twice
    - Walter corrected this
- Slide 8:
  - Mike: Maybe IBISISS should be IBIS-ISS
    - Walter made this change

Todd: The web page makes it difficult to link to items
- Mike: It uses HTML frames
  - This has been an annoyance for a while
  - It can be recreated without frames

AR: Mike change web page to make items easily linkable

Walter showed the IBIS-ISS document:
- Page 24: Walter added a Scoping Rules section
  - This is not from Synopsys

AR: Walter email updated IBIS-ISS document to list

Walter showed a list of Upcoming AMI BIRDs:
2: AMI Flow Issues:
- Arpad: There was a conflict between Cadence and SiSoft interpretation of Use_Init_Output
- Arpad: Is the new feature digital or analog?
- Walter: It is analog
  - The time of transition needs to be known though
- Todd: What to do with both Impulse Response and Time Domain behavior?
  - This is completely different from digital input to Tx_GetWave
- Walter: Tx_GetWave input is the input to Rx 
  - Todd: Only if Use_Init_Output is true
- Todd: Tx_GetWave is handled as though the DFE is turned off
  - The waveform is so bad you can't see transition boundaries
  - It is not useful
3: Deprecate:
- Walter: The Format keyword needs to go away
  - It is a redundant leaf name
- Bob: Deprecation can be a problem
  - Are there any models using it?
  - Walter: 
- Walter: No need for separate Reserved and Model_Specific branches
  - Bob: How to tell between them?
  - Walter: It is reserved if it is one of the reserved names
  - Todd: A misspelled Reserved_Parameter would be an error
- Bob: Are private parameters not understood by other vendors?
  - Walter: Vendors have to document how to use private parameters
    - Others are just info
- Arpad: What is the reason for not wanting 3C?
  - Walter: Vendors have to decide which should be new Reserved_Parameters
  - Arpad: Having the two allows for a quality check to find misspelled params
    - Todd: That is not much of a check
- Todd: This gives a natural growth path for parameters to become reserved
  - Files will still work as-is once parameters become reserved
  - Mike: 3C probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but doesn't buy much
- Todd: Having 3C does not block us, but has a negative impact
- Bob: Having only Reserved Params would leave us always behind
4: AMI Structural Enhancements:
- Bob: Would env variables be platform specific?
  - Walter: All operating systems have env variables
5: Computed Parameters:
6: New Reserved Parameters:

Arpad: The IBIS Summit is July 28:
- Bob: The presentation needs to have the date fixed

Bob: Are these changes enough to ask the parser contractor to stop?
- Arpad: How long before these BIRDs come through?
- Walter: It should start as soon as IBIS-ISS is done
- Arpad: IBIS 5.1 may come up before long
- Bob: It may be a year from now
- Arpad: Any changes should be made before many models become entrenched

Arpad: Are we done with IBIS-ISS after it is shown to the IBIS Open Forum?
- Bob: We can upload to the IBIS web site and leave it for a while

Next meeting: 21 July 2009 12:00pm PT

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives