IBIS Macromodel Task Group Meeting date: 22 May 2012 Members (asterisk for those attending): Agilent: Fangyi Rao * Radek Biernacki Altera: * David Banas Andrew Joy Consulting: Andy Joy Ansys: Samuel Mertens * Dan Dvorscak * Curtis Clark Arrow Electronics: Ian Dodd Cadence Design Systems: Terry Jernberg * Ambrish Varma Feras Al-Hawari Celsionix: Kellee Crisafulli Cisco Systems: Ashwin Vasudevan Syed Huq Ericsson: Anders Ekholm IBM: * Greg Edlund Intel: Michael Mirmak LSI Logic: Wenyi Jin Maxim Integrated Products: Mahbubul Bari Mentor Graphics: * John Angulo Zhen Mu * Arpad Muranyi Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov Micron Technology: Randy Wolff NetLogic Microsystems: Ryan Couts Nokia-Siemens Networks: * Eckhard Lenski QLogic Corp. James Zhou Sigrity: Brad Brim * Kumar Keshavan * Ken Willis SiSoft: Walter Katz Todd Westerhoff Doug Burns * Mike LaBonte Snowbush IP: Marcus Van Ierssel ST Micro: Syed Sadeghi Teraspeed Consulting Group: Scott McMorrow Bob Ross TI: Casey Morrison Alfred Chong Vitesse Semiconductor: Eric Sweetman Xilinx: Mustansir Fanaswalla The meeting was lead by Arpad Muranyi ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Opens: - None -------------------------- Call for patent disclosure: - None ------------- Review of ARs: - Arpad submit BIRD 123.3 draft 3 to Open Forum - Done - Bob propose method for parameter passing - In progress - Arpad revise BIRD 117 and 118 to generalize parameter file references - In progress - Ambrish update BIRD 145 for pad to pin mapping and other clarifications - This is tabled, waiting for the outcome of other issues ------------- New Discussion: Discussion of -1 markers for end of clock_times: - Arpad: Michael M. pointed out that this violates the requirement for monotonically increasing times. - There is no problem if we consider the end marker not part of the data What does CDR return when clock goes out of sync? - Arpad: This raises a question whether the tool should raise a flag to end the simulation - Kumar: We should not dictate what EDA tools do - Ambrish: The real question is how to know if it has gone out of sync - Arpad: Should we allow other numbers after a -1? - Kumar: No that is a terminator - Arpad: Should tools keep printing values even after lock is lost? - If the RX prints nothing what should the tool do? - Kumar: There is no requirement for clock_times - Arpad: What if it suddenly starts working late? - Kumar: There is no problem - The spec is good as-is Arpad showed Parameter Tree Keyword BIRD draft 1: - Arpad deleted "select" in Description - Arpad: It should appear before [Component] or at end of file - Kumar: Can there be multiple instances of this? - Arpad: No, one section can hold all trees - Kumar: It might be good to have one in each [Model] - Arpad: It is scoped at top level - Mike: It says it is scoped at Component level - Arpad changed the wording - Radek: It could say "top keyword hierarchy level" - Arpad changed the wording BIRD 121.2 draft: - Arpad: We were unable to resolve a dispute - Walter removed the controversial ".report file" part - A motion would be needed to untable - No motion at this time BIRD 150: - Arpad: Comments and questions can be made here or by email BIRD 117/118: - Arpad: Discussion stopped a month ago - Arpad showed BIRD 117 draft 3 - Arpad: Ambrish pointed out that this could point to an unrelated AMI file - It can point to non-AMI files, so why restrict which AMI to point to? - Mike: Agree, there should be no special restriction for AMI files - Radek: There are questions why another AMI file would be used - Ambrish: There might be cut and paste errors - The "wrong" file might accidentally be present, but it is still wrong - Arpad: The parser might warn for this - Greg: What is the need for an external parameter file? - Arpad: ISS can have parameters passed in - AMI style parameter trees are an easy way to store them - If the ISS is external it's parameters probably would be too - This is an old AR of mine - Radek: This says nothing about Model_Specific or Reserved_Parameter branches - We need consistency about collapsing these branches - Ambrish: There would be no Reserved_Parameters used here anyway - Arpad: We do not require root names, and things like usage are stripped off anyway - Ambrish: There should be nothing between the root name and bottom parameter - Arpad: Mike LaBonte pointed out that the same name can appear in two trees - Ambrish: We should disallow that - We would not be using Reserved_Parameters - Arpad: We still need to describe context-specific rules - Should there be a branch called ISS? - Radek: We will probably never use Reserved_Parameter for this - Arpad: Since we allow AMI files to be used we should not impose other restrictions - Other files do not require Model_Specific or Reserved_Parameters - Radek: Those keywords could be left out - Mike: What if Mode appears both under DFE and CDR, for example? - Radek: The syntax has those paths spelled out - Arpad: If we don't require the Model_Specific/Reserved_Parameters level, do we allow them? - Ambrish: Spelling out the path seems redundant - Mike: It would be best for the parser not to make reading an AMI file a special case - Radek: We should at least make clear that Model_Specific is not needed for non-AMI files - Arpad suggested a change that would clarify this ------------- Next meeting: 29 May 2012 12:00pm PT Next agenda: 1) Task list item discussions ------------- IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List: 1) Simulator directives