IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 30 March 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, Sigrity
  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
* Scott McMorrow, Teraspeed Consulting Group
  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
* Wenyi Jin, LSI Logic
* Zhen Mu, Mentor Graphics

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opens:

- None

--------------------------
Call for patent disclosure:

- No one declared a patent.

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

- Arpad and Bob: Discuss process and goals for this group

- Arpad: Write a clarification BIRD to discuss accuracy issues related to the 
  various AMI clock_tick algorithms in an IBIS-AMI DLL
  - TBD

- 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 showed an ATM Process and Goals presentation:
- Slide 4:
  - We will submit to Open Forum BIRD(s) to solve problem with AMI
  - Only to correct errors and inconsistencies in 5.0
  - No new features will be addressed
- Slide 5:
  - The draft BIRD is discussed in ATM meetings
  - The BIRD will be submitted to the Open Forum for review
  - The Open Forum will call for a vote for acceptance into IBIS 5.2
- Slide 6:
  - The BIRD addresses multiple issues, there are opinion differences
  - Need feedback from:
    - EDA vendors
    - Model makers
    - IBIS parser developers
  - Some "mission creep" is slipping into the BIRD
- Slide 7:
  - Our problem is that we chose to write a single BIRD for all issues
  - This is like writing a new specification
- Slide 8:
  - We should adopt a minimalist approach
  - Consider writing multiple smaller BIRDs
  - We should clarify semantics more than changing keywords
  - We should have a toolkit on the web with functioning example models
- Todd: The TX model in our toolkit is complete and ready to run
- Arpad: We should have RX too
- Radek: Is it posted on the IBIS website?
- Todd: Yes it is the latest in the ATM work archive

Arpad: Would like to discuss the checklist
- Bob: The main goal is that we are clear and accurate

Arpad showed a checklist spreadsheet:
- Items are divided into four categories
  - Parser
  - Flow
  - Ambiguities
  - Existing BIRD
- "Must fix" items are identified
- Walter: I am working to eliminate "Array"
- Bob: That row (28) could just be removed
- Walter: Agree
- Radek: Quotes and characters should be in ambiguities
  - Arpad added that
- Bob: We also have to separate the .ami and .dll portions
- John: This could go in flow
- Fangyi: COuld this be part of row 11?
- Bob: No
- Todd: The new text doesn't spell it out
- John: At least not well enough
  - It should have a diagram
- Fangyi: Should we clarify the string extraction form .ami files?
- Bob: Arpad's diagrams do that
- Todd: That is different
- We only need to record that it needs to be fixed, not how
- Fangyi: We should clarify the units of the ??? function?
- Arpad: Would like to post this on the ATM website
  - Do we need other columns?
  - The BIRD ID column is there to deal with multiple BIRDs

Bob: Do we need one BIRD to set a baseline for the others?
- Arpad: Any single large BIRD will cause problems
- Todd: For each BIRD we have to define the mission
  - Walter had talked about Jitter and Analog BIRDs, for example
  - This has to be doing up front
- Bob: Are we talking about BIRDs in this committee, or to submit?
- Arpad: To be submitted
- Bob: A large number of BIRDs have not integrate well at the Open Forum
- Arpad: Some things can be grouped together
- Bob: We have to consider deprecation
  - Eliminating Format may be OK
  - Deprecation must be a last resort, however
  - One BIRD may contradict another BIRD
- Todd: We have a process to clean 5.0, Jitter, and Analog
  - How should we submit this to the Open Forum?
- Bob: For example, the clock_tick problem should be a BIRD
- Arpad: That is a 5.0 problem
  - But Bob said we should have one BIRD for 5.0 cleanup
- Ambrish: Rows 16 to 20 could be submitted together
- Arpad: We should not do enhancements
  - We may need to take apart our flows
  - They contain both fixes and enhancements
- Scott:
  - We should have a clear delineation betwwen:
    - 5.0 spec clarification
      - Full BIRD for this
      -  This can be tasked out in subsections
    - Other BIRDs to clarify specific things
  - 5.0 clarification is primary
- Todd: This is what we have discussed, except for tasking out the clarification
  - We are talking about "micro-BIRDs"
  - The point is that this group must approve
- Scott: Maybe "baby BIRDs"
- Bob: Not in full agreement
- Walter: I thought many of our ideas were already approved
  - We have to have formal approval
- Arpad: That's why I added column D, to record approval
- Walter: If we skip row 25 we need do define Reserved_Parameter carefully

AR: Arpad send presentation and spreadsheet to Mike for posting
AR: Mike post presentation and spreadsheet to website

Next meeting: 06 Apr 2009 12:00pm PT

--------

IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives