IBIS Macromodel Task Group Meeting date: 05 January 2010 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 Herrick, Ansoft Chris McGrath, Synopsys * Danil Kirsanov, Ansoft David Banas, Xilinx Deepak Ramaswany, Ansoft Donald Telian, consultant Doug White, Cisco Systems Eckhard Lenski, Nokia-Siemens Networks Eckhard Miersch, Sigrity 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 Komow, 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 Kaufer, Mentor Graphics 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, Mentor Graphics Vikas Gupta, Xilinx Vuk Borich, Agilent * Walter Katz, SiSoft Zhen Mu, Mentor Graphics ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Opens: - Bob: There is a pending bug to discuss. -------------------------- Call for patent disclosure: - No one declared a patent. ------------- Review of ARs: - Arpad send text representation to Mike L for posting - Done - Mike L post Arpad's document - Done - Arpad: Write a clarification BIRD to discuss accuracy issues related to the various AMI clock_tick algorithms in an IBIS-AMI DLL - TBD - Todd: Update the BIRD for IBIS S-parameter box based on feedback from discussion - No update - 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: New parser BUG discussion: - Bob: Can content enclosed by parentheses span lines? - Arpad: The parser chokes on this now - Walter: As with TS2 newlines are just whitespace - This is a real bug - Mike: Lines in LISP derived languages are meaningless - Walter: Except in quoted strings - Bob: This applies to what is passed to the DLL? - Walter: That is passed as one line - Arpad: What will the DLL do if CRLF is in the string? - Todd: It's up to the model writer - Arpad: The EDA tool generates the string - Todd: The EDA tool should insert no whitespace - Walter: There is the "name value" construct - Arpad: We should restrict what can be passed - Bob: My testcases found several formats that failed with lists - I will file the BUG - Arpad: So whitespace should be reduced to single spaces for the DLLs - Todd: The question is if we want to make Corner a special case Walter showed AMI_BIRD_100105.doc: - We should move through this quickly - Bob: We may want to at least put some issues on the table - Arpad: Should we have a time limit for this? Will it take years? - Walter: We should take care of the things we agree on first - Then see if it takes 2 weeks or 4 weeks - Arpad: Agree, we need to move along - Page 3: - Walter: Can we delete the .ami file over at the top? - Bob: It is not implied that the DLL reads the .ami file - Walter added a temporary sentence to clarify that - Bob will refine this - Walter: Added a few constraints to help tools read the files - Bob: Root, branch and leaf are undefined - Arpad: The issue is that we discuss concepts before defining them - Walter: Are the constraints OK? - Bob: For example, "Allowed Values" are not defined - Arpad: Why leading caps for reserved parameters? - Walter: That will avoid conflicts with future reserved params - Mike: Should non-reserved be lowercase? - Walter: Not necessarily - Todd: This is because we eliminated Reserved Parameter - Walter: We agreed to use model naming to denote reserved status - Ambrish: I would like to retain the Reserved keyword - Walter: That is allowed, there can be a Reserved branch - Sub-param order is unimportant - Sub-param names can not be reserved keywords - Mike: "Parameters" should be "Parameter names" - Page 4: - Walter: Environmental variables should be expanded to IBIS in general - Arpad: They are commonly called Environment Variables - Walter: Special AMISearchPath variable is very powerful - Arpad: Changing env variables from project to project is annoying - Mike: These may not come from a shell, but from the EDA tool - Walter: They can come from the OS or the software can override - Bob: Currently files must be in the same directory - Can IBISCHK still do that? - Walter: We may want to relax the same directory rule - Bob: The parser must be able to check ignoring variables - Arpad: Can we accept backslashes in addition to forward? - Walter: Backslash creates havoc on Linux - Walter: I made Usage and Type required - Walter: No double quotes are allowed in strings - Arpad: Double quotes should be required for strings - Mike: Why would we disallow empty strings? - Walter: We would have to define the difference between blank and empty string - Bob: String as an argument should have double-quotes - Why the 128 character limit? - Walter: 128 character limit was to allow tools to easily display content - Bob: EDA tools should line wrap - Walter: The old String definition does require double quotes - Some existing AMI files break that rule - We reached agreement on strings - Walter: I will send the original doc to Mike, no clean copy AR: Bob suggest .ami/DLL relationship language for BIRD AR: Walter add root/branch/leaf definitions and other changes to BIRD AR: Mike post Walter's BIRD update Next meeting: 12 Jan 2009 12:00pm PT -------- IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List: 1) Simulator directives