IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 17 August 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

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Opens:

- none

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Call for patent disclosure:

- none

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Review of ARs:

- Michael M: email ATM list to announce IBIS-ISS discussion in interconnect group
  - Done

- Ken: edit the IBIS-AMI Flow Correction BIRD
  - Done
  - Bob requested an additional change

- 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

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New Discussion:

Arpad: We still have to figure out how to deal with Use_Init_Output

Arpad showed the IBIS AMI BIRD task list and explained the items

Arpad showed the IBIS-AMI-Definition Clarifications BIRD
- Arpad would like to delete a sentence
- Some question comments from Walter are still here
- Arpad added a sentence explaining that the follow section applies to .AMI
  files.
- The only comment character is pipe
- A comment from Walter asks if there is a limit to the number of lines
- Walter: There should not be
  - Also the 120 character limit should not be per line
  - The should apply to Description strings even if they span lines
  - Lines can have more than 120 characters
- Some felt the line limit should change from a hard limit to a recommendation.
- Arpad changed it to state that lines should not exceed 120 characters.

- A comment says that .AMI differs from .IBS in whitespace rules.
- Bob: "No attempt needs to be made" is not formal spec language.
- This was changed for clarity.

- Arpad: Should we remove the details about what is an integer?
  - It is from Wikipedia
- We added a scientific notation example of what is not allowed.
- Walter: We should give the range of allowable numbers
- John: Why not allow scientific notation?
- Mike: Some parsers might not support that for integers
- Scott: We should support scaling suffixes like M, etc.
- Arpad: We have a rule not allowing that
- Arpad added scientific notation examples, one OK and one out of range

- Arpad: The definition of float states they can't be integers
  - Actually floating point storage can accept integers
- Walter: What is there is OK
- Mike: It would be better to discuss "parameters" instead of "numbers"
  - State what each parameter type does and does not accept
- John: We are duplicating what ANSI C has specified
- Bob: ANSI describes float and integer similarly to how Walter expressed it
- Walter: There are two concepts here:
  - How values are represented in an AMI file
  - How it is passed to a DLL
- We moved on with no decision on this

- Arpad: Do we want to change the rule about scaling factors
- Walter: Originally the AMI file was going to be IBIS-like
  - Then we changed it to reflect the parameter tree structure
- Arpad: We can discuss the scaling suffix issue in the other BIRD

- Arpad: String literals should always be in double quotes
  - Allowing some strings to not be in quotes could be confusing
- Walter: Files are more readable without quotes
- Radek: Prefer to have quotes
- John: Quotes identify it as a string literal, more readable
- Mike: It may be hard to know when quotes are absolutely required
- We kept the quote requirement

AR: Arpad send updated definition clarification BIRD to Mike for posting

exercise

Next meeting: 24 August 2010 12:00pm PT

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives