Re: BIG BIRD COMMENTS

Bob,

  Thanks for taking the time to read it!

  With regard to the several good points you brought up:

  1) [End] keyword at end of file?

      Oops! I'll put that in rev 10.1 of the BIRD.

  2) Separate .PKG file?

      It seemed to me from voice discussions in the Forum that several
      people wanted a separate file for the package, perhaps to minimize
      the impact on the parser. But since the package models won't
      appear until Version 2.0 comes out, and since the parser will change
      a lot then anyway, I'd be happy to see this data encapsulated in
      the .IBS file. One problem is that, if a tool doesn't do a detailed
      package analysis and only wants the data from the [Pin] section, it'll
      have to wade through tons o' package data to find what it wants, thus
      slowing it down.

      Comments, anyone else?

  3) PGA alphanumeric pin names?

      Frankly, I didn't realize one could use names like "AA1" for pins.
      All of the models we have on vhdl.org are from Intel, and those
      guys always seem to use "1", "2", "3", ..., even for big, nasty
      208-pin components.

      I admit that, on reading the 1.1 spec, I don't see that alphanumeric
      names are prohibited. Is this an oversight, or is it an intentional
      feature of the language?

      The only problem I see with alphanumerics is how to make it clear
      what the "ordering" of the pin identifiers is. Remember that to
      exploit symmetry you need to know which matrix index is "bigger"
      so that you can decide whether an entry is in the upper or lower
      half. I suppose that we could let the ordering be the same as the
      order in which the names are given in the [Pin] section of the .IBS
      file.

      Before I rewrite the BIRD, I'd like clarification from others on
      whether the alphanumerics are truly kosher or not.

      Again, anyone care to comment?

  4) "Banded Matrix" -> Banded_Matrix

      OK! That would make life easier. I'll put it in rev 10.1.

  5) Are metric suffixes allowed?

      Yes. I'll make it explicit in rev 10.1.

--Eric
Received on Thu Mar 24 19:15:10 1994