[IBIS] AMS tastes great and leaves your teeth shiny white, too!

Sorry, couldn't help myself ;-).

A few points I'm still stubbornly trying to make ....

1) The future of AMS

I have little doubt that Arpad can do great things with AMS models.  Heck,
if he says AMS is the future, it probably is.
Long term, I agree ... it's where we will probably end up

2) The practical issues with AMS

Unfortunately, it took us years to get vendors to create good IBIS 2.1
models - and there are a number that haven't figured that out, either.
Handing the modeling community a programming language is a non-solution.  We
need to create the modeling infrastructure that goes with it, both in terms
of constructing models (the "standard building blocks" Arpad mentioned) and
the processes that extract data the models use (in other words, s2ibis3 for
AMS).  Requiring model builders to hand craft models isn't going to get us
very far - we need the corresponding model development tools for AMS that we
had for IBIS.

AMS is a programming language.  Declaring AMS as the modeling language of
choice doesn't automatically get us good models any more than the definition
of C++ automatically resulted in superlative graphics programs.  C++ may
have been a key building block, but there was much, much more to it than
that.

We need to be realistic about the infrastructure required to put AMS "into
production" as a SI technology, and make sure that we can stay afloat from a
modeling perspective until we get there.

Which brings me to (you knew it was coming) ...

3) IBIS Macromodels

I don't see this as a long-term solution - I see it as a bridge technology.
I'm not sure why Donald's point of "we do everything with a B-element and
macromodeling" didn't resonate more than it did.  This isn't Cadence banging
on a proprietary drum, at least not in my view - it's saying that this
approach has worked for years, and still has some life left in it.  I think
it's the thing that can buy us time while we figure out what comes next.

4) EDA Vendors and IBIS Support

Arpad had a really good point earlier - why are people arguing about this
now, instead of when the BIRDs were passed?  Personally, I've seen that IBIS
support is no longer a competitive issue among EDA tools.  There was a time
when vendors rushed to support new IBIS standards for fear of losing sales.
I don't see that anymore - in fact, I see some vendors that can't articulate
which IBIS features their tool does or doesn't support.  That tells me
vendors don't see IBIS support as an issue, because customers don't see it
as an issue.

Todd.

Todd Westerhoff
High Speed Design Group Manager
Cisco Systems
1414 Massachusetts Ave - Boxboro, MA - 01719
email:twesterh@cisco.com
ph: 978-936-2149
============================================

"Always do right.
 This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

- Mark Twain
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