IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 01 March 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:

- None

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Call for patent disclosure:

- None

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Review of ARs:

- Bob check BIRD 127 for type clarification possibilities
  - In progress
  - May need to clarify float numbered indexing for taps

- Ken draft language to clarify handling of multiple channels
  - Done

- Ambrish draft BIRD for relationship between Type and Format (row 25)
  - No progress yet

- Arpad follow up with Kukal on BIRD 121
  - Done, may be more

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

- Ken and Ambrish send examples of AMI model requiring array input
  - Done

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New Discussion:

Arpad showed the new Crosstalk BIRD draft:
- It has asterisks added to make it more readable
- Ken: First column of matrix is primary channel, others are aggressors
  - Aggressor TX has to examine its own EQ first
  - Init must receive it's own channel impulse response
  - Init returns response to rewrite first column of matrix
  - RX may modify any matrix columns
- Fangyi: Model makers will not know if it will be used as primary
- Ken: EDA tools will have to manage that
- Walter: This is not what needs to be done
  - The primary TX is connected to an RX
  - TX Init sets EQ for primary
  - Then it has to apply that to the other channels
  - RX then does almost the same thing
- Arpad: This BIRD covers that
- Walter: Not if it says TX can only change itself
- Arpad: The tool will have to copy the responses
  - It knows which is primary and aggressor
  - This BIRD describes the matrix, not the flow
- Fangyi: This is aggressor TX to victim RX?
- Arpad: Yes
- Radek: It won't work if one model has to do both
- Walter: We should work this out in a limited email thread
- Ambrish: Graphic representation would be good
  - Please include me
- Radek: There could be parameters to identify the aggressor

Walter showed "History and Usage of Out and InOut Model Specific AMI Parameters":
- The need to present model state information has been declared in the past
- A fundamental principle of AMI is every EDA platform gives the same results
- Platforms may differ on choice of inputs to the models
  - May differ on output processing
- Mike LaBonte explained in an email
- Ken: Who said we could not write any outputs?
- Walter: Ambrish
- Scott: We have no way to define the meanings of the outputs
  - Without meaning we can't evaluate
  - This is incomplete from a specification point of view
- Walter: Every param has a description
  - The user will know how to interpret
- Arpad: Machines still can't interpret
- Ken: It should be specified what will be done with it
- Walter: The description will specify
- Scott: Why object to more clarity?
- Arpad: Maybe a perl script will process it
  - We can't leave it unspecified
  - We should at least say it should be put in a file
- Walter showed an email replying to Fangyi
  - IBIS 5.0 allows values to be output
  - Models have info at Close
  - There is no other way to dump that info
- Arpad: How would a tool plot string parameters
- Ken: Models can write their own text files
  - That would be easier than parameter values
- Radek: String output could have any data
  - This can be presented ready to be used
- Ambrish: Could this be used for backchan?
- Walter: Kumar came up with the same scheme independently
- Arpad: We could specify a machine readable format
  - But the tool still will not know what to do with it
- Walter: Each platform may differ on processing
  - We can't tell them what to do with it
  - The tool can only display a spreadsheet
  - The user must determine what to do with it
- Mike: This idea enables innovation
  - The alternative is to wait until new keywords are in the spec
  - Parameter output may be more convenient than writing text files

Arpad: We should spell out a little more how jitter param outputs are used:
- Walter: The tool should use Init jitter but not GetWave
- Arpad showed an email replying to Mike Steinberger
- Radek: We don't need a universal rule
  - A rule for each parameter is OK
- Walter: For new params we could cover it in a BIRD for 5.2
- Ambrish: We could have a rule that Model Specific outputs can't change results
- Walter: That's OK

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Next meeting: 08 Mar 2011 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
