IBIS Macromodel Task Group Meeting date: 01 July 2014 Members (asterisk for those attending): Agilent: * Fangyi Rao Radek Biernacki Altera: David Banas ANSYS: * Dan Dvorscak * Curtis Clark Avago (LSI) Xingdong Dai Cadence Design Systems: * Ambrish Varma Brad Brim Kumar Keshavan Ken Willis Ericsson: Anders Ekholm Intel: Michael Mirmak Maxim Integrated Products: Hassan Rafat Mentor Graphics: * John Angulo * Arpad Muranyi Micron Technology: * Randy Wolff Justin Butterfield QLogic Corp. James Zhou Andy Joy SiSoft: Walter Katz * Todd Westerhoff * Mike LaBonte Synopsys Rita Horner Teraspeed Consulting Group: Scott McMorrow * Bob Ross The meeting was led by Arpad Muranyi. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Opens: - None -------------------------- Call for patent disclosure: - None ------------- Review of ARs: - None ------------- New Discussion: BIRD 147: - Arpad: Walter sent an email he wanted to share - Arpad showed the email (text of email here) - Arpad: SiSoft's removal from BIRD 147 is not really new. - Is Walter withdrawing his own proposal? - Todd: Yes - We believe co-optimization is about optimizing some system level metric - BIRD 147 is about hardware level emulation - Our customers optimize thousands of channels on a per channel basis. - Arpad: It sounds like the proposal is withdrawn due to lack of interest - We actually have about 50% interest in it - Todd: SiSoft has been looking for a broader discussion of optimization, with less acrimony. - Modeling hardware is a valid way to achieve optimization. - There are other ways, but we haven't been able to discuss them. - BIRD 147 believes it can model the optimization each channel will find. - We have other needs but have to be careful how our time is spent. - Arpad showed a presentation - slide 2: - Arpad: Two IC vendors are important but not here today, Intel and Altera. - slide 3: - Arpad: Here is a high level comparison of the proposals. - With BIRD 147 the EDA tool facilitates communication. - The .bci file has the communication information. - With Walter's proposal the .ami file has the communication information. - Those are already passed by the tools. - slide 4: - Arpad: In both proposals the EDA tool passes parameter strings. - Both proposals will need BIRD 128. - Ambrish: I'm not sure the SiSoft proposal has string passing. - Todd: The string to AMI_GetWave is passing information. - Arpad is right that passing is needed. - Arpad: In both cases the DLL function signature is not changed. - With BIRD 147 the EDA tool is only a "mailman". - slide 5: - Arpad: Intel likes the BCI approach because it supports proprietary content. - The BCI approach is good because the TX and RX use the same file. - Maybe the SiSoft approach could do the same with Model_Specific parameters. - slide 6: - Arpad: Altera likes not having to recompile the TX with the SiSoft approach. - It might be possible if the EDA tool pretended to be the TX. - The EDA tool would only know about standard protocols. - The SiSoft special AMI parameters could help with this. - slide 7: - Arpad: We need a solution that serves both of these vendors. - Todd: The two proposals are similar in many ways. - We haven't defined the problem well enough. - Intel values supporting proprietary protocols. - Altera likes supporting legacy models, that could be a requirement or a goal. - The RX could ask for things the TX can't do. - Enforcing consistency will be a challenge. - We have to ask which co-optimization methods we want to enable. - We need to take a step back and prioritize the various needs. - Ambrish: The problem is well defined. - We work with 3 or 4 IP vendors. - Our proposal meets their requirements. - BIRD 147 is at least a subset of the complete solution. - David idea to not change the TX is nice to have, but not high priority. - Arpad: This presentation is 2 weeks old, not a response to Walter. - With Walter withdrawing we have only BIRD 147. - Todd: Do we just vote on the BIRDs brought to us? - Or as a standards body do we solve problems? - BIRD 147 might not evolve well to a more general solution. - SiSoft believes it is not enough. - Arpad: should we send BIRD 147 to the Open Forum for a vote? - Bob: We should hold off, the SiSoft proposal has good points. - We should work on the points brought up by Intel and Altera. - More discussion would be helpful, currently I'm neutral about this. - Ambrish: What is needed to complete BIRD 147? - Bob: I don't know if we can have BCI for co-optimization. - Arpad: If BIRD 147 is a subset it is therefore incomplete. - Ambrish: It solves the problems given to us. - Todd: It does solve the time domain emulation of hardware back-channels. - If we are trying to solve co-optimization for buffers that are not designed to talk to each other, do we need to modify the TX and RX have to talk to each other? - Arpad: We have back-channel setups where the chips optimize each other. - Or the EDA tool could be doing it. - Todd: In either proposal the brains are in the RX. - Arpad: I thought the SiSoft proposal allowed the tool to be more involved. - Todd: The RX knows how to optimize itself, and it can view the TX as generic. - We only need to abstract the TX operation so the RX understands it. - The TX DLL does not need to change, we just describe it. - The RX might not call the TX in the language it understands. - The wrapper function Walter mentioned would do that. - Waiting for steady state after each command could eat up a lot of time. - System level statistical should be part of the proposal. - Arpad: BIRD 147 supports that. - Todd: It seems to have been tacked on. - Ambrish: We made a serious effort on that and we know it works. - Todd: The flow involves calling the model multiple times. - That will have a significant impact. - It needs to be thought out more and tested. - Arpad: How do we go forward? - Todd: We could have a vote. - Bob: If there is other information we need it should be put on the table. - SiSoft's withdrawal takes away one option. - Arpad: The vote would be to promote BIRD 147 or continue working. AR: Arpad formulate a vote for next week. ------------- Next meeting: 08 Jul 2014 12:00pm PT ------------- IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List: 1) Simulator directives