IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 01 June 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
  Kellee Crisafulli, Celsionix
  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:

- Bob: Should discuss IBIS summit
  - Presenters must make their own handout copies

- Arpad: Do we need to go over summit presentations?
  - Walter: My BIRDs will be discussed in that context

- Arpad: I just emailed an AMI flow update to discuss

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

- No one declared a patent.

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

- Arpad: update AMI flow diagram and text
  - Haven't started chapter 2 yet

- Mike: post BIRDs from Walter
  - Haven't received any
  - Ones recently sent to list can be posted

- Arpad:  Update section 2 text based on updated AMI flow
  - In progress

- 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:    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:

Walter introduced 4 BIRDs:
- Our previous large BIRD has been split into 4 BIRDs
- Will be explained at the upcoming summit

Walter showed the IBIS-AMI Keyword Labels Clarification BIRD:
- Walter: It helps to give names to items in a list
  - These are like column names
- Michael M: Are there any examples?
- Walter: I will add that

Walter showed the IBIS-AMI Keyword Format Clarification BIRD:
- Clarifies that Format is optional
- Arpad: The wording is a little confusing
  - This is not about how to interpret the spec

Walter showed the IBIS-AMI String Clarification BIRD:
- IBIS 5.0 does not say String has to have double-quotes
- Quotes are not needed if there is no whitespace, etc.
- Arpad: Examples would help
  - How do we distinguish between string literals and keywords?
- Walter used CSV spreadsheet conventions to explain.
- Bob: This is not for descriptions?
- Walter: It is only for String param values
- John: Disagree that this is unreadable
- Walter type some examples
- Fangyi: The current spec says where quotes are needed
- Walter: Not for parameters, but for everything else
- Fangyi: Would this hint that quotes are optional for strings sent to DLLs?
- Walter: 
- Bob: The parser developer may have trouble
- Arpad: The double quotes are not passed into the DLL?
- Walter: The EDA tool adds quotes
- Arpad: So the DLL removes them on input?
- Walter: Correct

Walter showed the IBIS-AMI Value Default Clarification BIRD:
- Specifies when to use Default and when to use Value
- This is the only BIRD that would require an IBIS parser change
- Ambrish: We don't have Value as a separate field
- Walter: We have Format
- Arpad: Info can't be changed by the tool
- Walter: Someone could suggest that change too
  - That doesn't seem important
- Arpad: It's a little embarrassing to have a Default for a value that can't
  be changed

Walter showed Arpad's updated AMI flow diagrams:
- Arpad: There are second rows of T/F/X to show the range of inputs
- Fangyi: Is TTF missing?
- Arpad: That was never in our truth table
- Fangyi: It's legal
- Arpad: We have TXF, so that includes TTF
  - How can we have F for Use_Init_Output, which is ignored for statistical?
- Walter: At the summit I will propose some best practice changes
  - It will not change the logic of this table
- Bob: We need to say how the EDA tool will interpret this
  - Just saying it is a don't care doesn't give that
- Arpad: I delete TXF because it is described above
- John: We should try to who AMI file content if possible
- Arpad: Page 4 the third column is grayed out
- Arpad: We agreed with the remaining slides last time
- Arpad: I added one more truth table for statistical only

Bob: Is the text part of the flow BIRD ready?
- Arpad: That may be ready next week

Arpad: Do we need to discuss anything ahead of the summit?
- Nothing

Next meeting: 8 June 2010 12:00pm PT

--------

IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives