IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 22 February 2011

Members (asterisk for those attending):
Agilent:                      Fangyi Rao
                            * Radek Biernacki
Ansoft:                       Chris Herrick
                              Danil Kirsanov
Ansys:                      * Samuel Mertens
                            * Dan Dvorscak
                              Deepak Ramaswamy
                              Jianhua Gu
Cadence Design Systems:       Terry Jernberg
                            * Ambrish Varma
Celsionix:                    Kellee Crisafulli
Cisco Systems:              * Mike LaBonte
                              Stephen Scearce
			      Ashwin Vasudevan
Ericsson:                     Anders Ekholm
IBM:                          Greg Edlund
Intel:                        Michael Mirmak
LSI Logic:                    Wenyi Jin
Mentor Graphics:            * John Angulo
                              Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov
                              Zhen Mu
                            * Arpad Muranyi
Micron Technology:            Randy Wolff
Nokia-Siemens Networks:     * Eckhard Lenski
Sigrity:                      Brad Brim
                              Kumar Keshavan
                              Ken Willis
SiSoft:                       Walter Katz
                              Mike Steinberger
                            * Todd Westerhoff
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

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Opens:

- Walter: MM is investing new file formats
  - We might want to use DOC for easier revisions

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Call for patent disclosure:

- None

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Review of ARs:

- Bob check BIRD 127 for type clarification possibilities
  - TBD

- Bob send draft Tables BIRD to Mike for posting
  - Done

- Ken draft language to clarify handling of multiple channels
  - In progress

- Ambrish draft BIRD for relationship between Type and Format (row 25)
  - TBD
  - Working with Bob
  - May be added to BIRD 127

- Arpad follow up with Kukal on BIRD 121 include file
  - Done

- Bob check what the ambiguity between Format and text
  strings is, (row 18 in the Task List)
  - Done

- Bob write a BIRD on correcting Table 1-3 in the spec.
        (Row 23 in the Task List).
  - in progress

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New Discussion:

Arpad asked for comments on the Table 1-3 BIRD draft
- None

Arpad asked for comments on the crosstalk BIRD draft
- None

We reviewed use of Table format:
- Arpad: We need to decide if Table is only for jitter PDF
- Bob: Is anyone using PDF?
- Todd: People use jitter elements, but not a PDF table
  - Walter would have more specific feedback
- Ambrish: People use Table for single row multi-column data
  - The first column has no index
  - It is used as an array
- Arpad: Why is List not good enough for that?
- Ambrish: List is for picking one value from a set
- Radek: It would be good to see some examples of actual use
- Bob: The problem is when it is used as an Output
- Todd: Models that used it as an array have been re-written
  - It may not be worth putting much effort into this
- Ambrish: There may be no use for Table
- Todd: We should look first at what models require for input
- Arpad: Are we concerned about legacy or new models?
- Ken: It is in new models
- Arpad: Walter had suggested using a string
- Bob: We have to change the spec for Table anyway
  - We could make it work as a array
- Todd: I will ask Walter if he has other uses for Table

AR: Ken and Ambrish send examples of AMI model requiring array input

Arpad: Discussion of BIRDs 121, 123, and 124 may have to wait for Walter
- BIRD 121 is about files that the DLLs need
- Bob: For BIRD 123 I sent a file with AMI reserved parameters listed
- Arpad showed the file listing AMI reserved parameter
- Bob: Some of these are new
  - Uncomfortable about some of the defaults
  - Not sure about Clock Centered, for example
- Todd: That just says the default PDF is no jitter
  - RX Noise is not actually jitter
  - Jitter is time domain
  - Noise is voltage domain
- Bob: They are related, hard to separate
- Arpad: Some parameters affect how you post-process an eye
  - Output parameters will be produced after Init is called
  - How will the tool know to change the stimulus?
- Todd: TX and RX Init are called before any GetWave
  - GetWave could return this, but do we want dynamic updates?

Arpad: There was much email discussion about Model Specific Output parameters
- If we expect tools to do something with it we should write that
- Todd: We write it to CSV files
- Ambrish: Another tool might not do that
- Mike: This is just extra information
  - The simulation still takes place as expected
- Arpad: It is a problem if the spec does not say what to do with it
- Todd: We have pushed for this for 4 years
  - We should make no statement about what to do with it
- Ken: The Model Specific parameter could be in Reserved
  - Then tools would be required to do something it
- Arpad: The spec should say the tool has to collect it
- Mike: The spec should say tools can ignore Model Specific Outputs

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Next meeting: 01 Mar 2011 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
