IBIS Macromodel Task Group Meeting date: 27 August 2013 Members (asterisk for those attending): Agilent: * Fangyi Rao * Radek Biernacki Altera: David Banas Julia Liu Hazlina Ramly Andrew Joy Consulting: Andy Joy ANSYS: Samuel Mertens * Dan Dvorscak * Curtis Clark Steve Pytel Luis Armenta Arrow Electronics: Ian Dodd Cadence Design Systems: Terry Jernberg Ambrish Varma Kumar Keshavan Ken Willis Cavium Networks: Johann Nittmann Celsionix: Kellee Crisafulli Cisco Systems: Ashwin Vasudevan Ericsson: Anders Ekholm IBM: Greg Edlund Intel: Michael Mirmak Maxim Integrated Products: Mahbubul Bari Hassan Rafat Ron Olisar Mentor Graphics: John Angulo Zhen Mu * Arpad Muranyi Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov Micron Technology: Randy Wolff Justin Butterfield NetLogic Microsystems: Ryan Couts Nokia-Siemens Networks: Eckhard Lenski QLogic Corp. James Zhou 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 Ray Anderson The meeting was led by Arpad Muranyi ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Opens: - Arpad noted that Ambrish could not attend today. The recent BIRD 147 update has been posted to the web archive. -------------------------- Call for patent disclosure: - None ------------- Review of ARs: - Radek update BIRD 155.1 to use BIRD 160 language adjusted for IBIS 6.0 - Done ------------- New Discussion: Interconnect Task Group report: Arpad reported that Brad Brim joined to discuss interconnect protocols. The group had agreed to use IBIS-ISS, but some specification would have to cover its use within SPICE comments. Walter said that a company has a patent covering conversion between 2D and 3D formats. Walter recommended avoiding use of pin X/Y locations in IBIS, to avoid patent infringement. BIRD 155: Arpad showed an email he had sent saying that two separate clauses could be combined into one. Radek said [External Circuit] is different, and it had to be possible to link to a different .ami file, that has no associated DLL. Arpad showed part of IBIS 6.0 describing rules for parameter files with and without .ami extension. He felt parameters with no DLL should not have the .ami extension. Bob said the .ami extension is not relevant when simply looking up parameters from a file, but we need rules for when a DLL must be present. Arpad showed a clause requiring AMI parameters to be in a .ami file. Radek said that does not mean parameters for other use must be in a .ami file. Arpad found IBIS 6.0 language clarifying this. Walter said we chose not to put analog models in .ami files, and these files are now intertwined. Mike said Executable lines in IBIS call the DLL and .ami files, and they should not be associated with each other independent of those calls. Todd felt that while that was technically correct, in practice there could be confusion. Arpad still questioned the accuracy of statements on IBIS 6.0 page 99 in light of the discussion. Bob said the use of parameters for [External Model] and [External Circuit] should not be subject to AMI restrictions. Radek noted that given a .ami file it is not possible to directly find the associated DLL files. Mike said that each AMI Executable line is not necessarily associated with the same .ami file. Radek felt that may not be true. Arpad asked if an AMI file has a Dep parameter but there is no DLL, what to do? Radek said Dep should not be allowed. Arpad felt those rules should not be on page 99. Bob and Radek disagreed. Arpad found language on page 168 requiring .ami extension for Parameter_File, referring to section 10.3 for details. He inferred that presence of a .ami file implies a DLL. Radek said it had to be possible to have a parameter file with no DLL, but such a file can not have Dep parameters. Mike noted that this is especially true for non-AMI models. Arpad showed BIRD 155.1 language allowing Usage Dep in .ami files. Todd asked if an AMI file is anything but a control file for a DLL. Radek agreed AMI and DLL files form a set. Bob said this would exclude parameter passing for [External Circuit]. Bob noted that the BIRD contains extra double quotes and other typos. He also suggested the list of cases might be converted to a table in editing. ------------- Next meeting: 03 September 2013 12:00pm PT ------------- IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List: 1) Simulator directives