IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 19 April 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
                            * Curtis Clark
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
NetLogic Microsystems:        Ryan Couts
Nokia-Siemens Networks:     * Eckhard Lenski
Sigrity:                      Brad Brim
                              Kumar Keshavan
                            * Ken Willis
SiSoft:                       Walter Katz
                              Mike Steinberger
                              Todd Westerhoff
Snowbush IP:                  Marcus Van Ierssel
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:

- Arpad can not make it next week.
  - Walter would like to give two BIRD presentations
  - We need to finalize the Out-InOut BIRD
    - Would prefer to be present for that
  - Ken: There is supposed to be a diagram for the jitter BIRD
  - Can someone conduct the meeting?
  - We will decide later

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Call for patent disclosure:

- None

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Review of ARs:

- Arpad submit Crosstalk Clarification BIRD to Open Forum
  - Done

- Ambrish start a BIRD on task list row 25
  - In progress, on hold

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

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New Discussion:

Arpad showed the Out-InOut BIRD draft:
- Ken: Is this on the website?
- Arpad: No, Scott made some comments that leave it unsettled.
- A few phrases are added in the 2nd paragraph of page two.
  - These put additional restrictions on how simulators may use Model_Specific parameters.
- Arpad: Walter disagreed and asked to have his name removed form the BIRD.
  - Should we vote on this?
- Ken: We should delay a vote until next week
- Bob: Any tool-specific usage is not compliant with the AMI spec
- John: If there is a "my model is super fast" parameter it should be allowed
  to change how the model works.
- Mike and Ambrish agreed.
- Radek: That directive would be for the model, not the tool.
- Arpad: Only Input parameters can change model behavior
- Mike: The first sentence should have "Usage Out or InOut".

AR: Arpad update Out-InOut BIRD and send to Mike for posting

Arpad showed a document from Bob:
- Mike: There has been no request to post this so far.
- Bob:
  - Concerns with Walter's proposal:
    - Added rules when we are just trying to describe Table syntax
  - Rows must be delimited by parentheses
  - If there is a single Type it applies to all columns
  - If multiple Types the number of columns must match the number of Types
- Mike: Some languages allow the last Type to apply to any additional columns
- Radek: Type could be defined at the Table level with new meanings
- Arpad: We should not have the text dictate what the type is as Walter proposed
- Bob: It is awkward to have Type as a leaf inside a Table
  - Label is different, not the the same level as Type
  - Type is a require parameter
- Radek: It is OK now but the number of Types dictates the number of columns
- Arpad: The wording for Label is good, could be used for Type
- Bob: Type could be moved down to the same level as Label
  - Labels are informational, never sent to the DLL
- Radek: The number of columns must be counted by parentheses
  - This determines the number of rows
- Bob: The DLL may return a different number of rows
- Arpad: For Out Tables the .ami format dictates what the DLL will return
  - This is important
- Bob: The .ami gives the number of columns
- Arpad showed the last example
- Bob: The Labels documents the number of columns
- Arpad: That template is only "suggested", not required
- Bob: The implication then is that at least one row is required
- Arpad: For Out parameters do we require the .ami to contain any data?
  - It could contain just ((Usage Out) (Type Integer))
- Bob: The spec does not allow that
- Radek: There is no rule saying you may not specify in the Out
- Arpad: What if the .ami conflicts with what the DLL produces?
  - Maybe the default makes no sense
- Ambrish: The model dictates what the table actually contains
- Radek: The .ami just gives a placeholder
- Arpad: This will have to be continued in a new BIRD draft
- Radek: The number of rows might be decided on the fly
  - The number of columns and rows is fixed, so the value is the Table
  - There is no parameter giving the number of rows
- Arpad: The suggestion is to require 1 row where Usage is Out
- Bob: We could generalize Tables if we want multidimensional tables
  - This was broken form day one
- Arpad: We could have a number of rows and not require 1 sample row
- Bob: Sometimes memory must be allocated in advance
- Radek: Number of rows is a good solution
- Arpad: This should be continued next week

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Next meeting: 26 Apr 2011 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
