
IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 17 Apr 2012

Members (asterisk for those attending):
Agilent:                      Fangyi Rao
                            * Radek Biernacki
Altera:                     * David Banas
Ansys:                        Samuel Mertens
                            * Dan Dvorscak
                            * Curtis Clark
Arrow Electronics:            Ian Dodd
Cadence Design Systems:       Terry Jernberg
                            * Ambrish Varma
                              Feras Al-Hawari
Celsionix:                    Kellee Crisafulli
Cisco Systems:                Ashwin Vasudevan
                              Syed Huq
Ericsson:                     Anders Ekholm
IBM:                          Greg Edlund
Intel:                      * Michael Mirmak  A
LSI Logic:                    Wenyi Jin
Maxim Integrated Products:    Mahbubul Bari
Mentor Graphics:            * John Angulo
                              Zhen Mu
                            * Arpad Muranyi
                              Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov
Micron Technology:            Randy Wolff
NetLogic Microsystems:        Ryan Couts
Nokia-Siemens Networks:     * Eckhard Lenski
QLogic Corp.                * James Zhou
Sigrity:                      Brad Brim
                              Kumar Keshavan
                              Ken Willis
SiSoft:                     * Walter Katz
                              Todd Westerhoff
                              Doug Burns
                            * Mike LaBonte
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:

- Michael M.: Need to ask question about code passed parameters
  - Also some questions about units
  - Five questions

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Call for patent disclosure:

- None

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Review of ARs:

- Arpad send notification of upcoming vote to the reflector.
  - Done
  - There may be questions about what we are voting on

- Walter/Bob prepare CTLE parameter string example
  - Done
  - There are other related requests

- Arpad to propose IBIS spec changes to clarify ISS D2A & A2D interfaces
  - Found a good location in the spec for this

- Arpad to write a new revision of BIRD 117 and 118 to generalize references
  to parameters in files (.ami or any)
  - Done

- Ambrish update BIRD 145 for pad to pin mapping and other clarifications
  - Tabled, waiting for outcome of other issues

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New Discussion:

Questions from Michael M.:
- Units for sample int, bit time, clock times:
  - Michael: It is not stated that units are seconds
  - Walter: Numbers are floating point, the units are seconds
  - James: We should document this in the new spec
  - Michael: It will be in 5.1, a BIRD may be needed
  - David: We could simply state that all units are MKS unless otherwise stated
  - Bob: The editorial group can handle this
  - Radek: Are unit suffixes accepted?
  - Michael & Arpad: No
- For Gaussian, Dual-Dirac, and DjRj types Float and UI are both permitted:
  - Michael: Can be fractional UI, can be seconds, could be tricky
  - Walter: This is cleared up in BIRD 123
    - I added "seconds or UI" to all params in BIRD 123
    - This should be done for the jitter parameters
     - Every Reserved_Par of type Float should say if it is in seconds?
  - Michael: Do we need Type Time to use instead of Float?
  - Walter: Model makers only need to specify on docs what the data type is
  - Bob: We don't want a specific type
  - Michael: Would a tool interpret a number a fraction of a UI if type not given?
  - Radek: It should be seconds unless type is given as UI
  - Walter: For time params Float is always seconds and UI is always UI
  - James: How is UI passed to the DLL?
  - Walter: It is an AMI_Init() float argument in seconds, bit_time
  - Michael: Rx_Receiver_Sensitivity can't be UI so it is always Float

BIRD 144.3:
- Arpad: Walter motioned to recommend rejection to the Open Forum
- Walter: A No vote means untabling and having a vote
- Bob: We should just return it to the Open Forum without recommendation
- Arpad: We are tasked with making a recommendation
- Bob: An s2p, s4p, or s7p could be configured using [External Circuit]
- Walter: The current BIRD 144 needs much work for termination issues
  - IBM is OK with BIRD 116
- Arpad: Voting a BIRD down is not the end, anyone can write a new BIRD
  - We have many other BIRDs that need our attention
  - We should make a recommendation on 144 though
- Radek: There is no deadline, we can keep it tabled
  - We need to avoid endless discussion of it though
- Arpad: It can be opened as a new BIRD anyway
- Mike L: We could have three votes for this
  - Whether to return to Open Forum, whether to recommend, what to recommend
- Ambrish: We do not have to make a recommendation
- Walter: We should find out how much support it has
- Arpad: We should try voting

- Mike motioned to return BIRD 144.3 to Open Forum
- Radek: Without recommendation?
- Mike withdrew his motion

- Radek motioned to table BIRD 144.3 for discussion
- Walter seconded
- Arpad: A yes vote is to table, no to keep discussion or abstain
- Roll call vote:
  Agilent:                Y
  Altera:                 Y
  Ansys:                  Y
  Cadence Design Systems: Y
  Intel:                  A
  Mentor Graphics:        Y
  Nokia-Siemens Networks: Y
  QLogic:                 Y
  SiSoft:                 Y
  Teraspeed:              Y
- The motion passed with 9 yes, 0 no, 1 abstain

- Bob motioned to table BIRD 145.2 for discussion
- Walter seconded
- No one objected
- The vote passed by acclamation
- Bob: Three authors of the multi-lingual proposal are here today

BIRD 117.4/118/3 draft 2:
- Arpad showed a list of changes
- Arpad: Full parameter tree paths are used to avoid ambiguity
  - Might still need to resolve reserved vs. model_specific
- Arpad showed BIRD 117.4 draft 2
- Arpad: Converter_Parameters is added
  - The separator parameter between tree levels is a period
  - File names are part of it
- Radek: Can files be in a subdirectory?
- Arpad: We have no language yet to allow paths
  - We would have to deal with separator characters and line length problems
- Walter: It not not be a full path, it would be relative
  - BIRD 121 describes it this way
- Arpad: EDA tools may offer ways for users to make specific value selections
  - The actual tree data is bracketed by IBIS keywords
- Walter: Parentheses would be better than periods
  - Bob would like to table this
  - He could make a recommendation for next week
- Bob: This is changing the rules for parameters
  - We used to have the parameters on one line
- Walter: We should table this until an alternative is suggested
- Bob: The complexity is excessive
  - The rules are impossible to check
- Ambrish: Why impossible?
- Bob: Each Converter_Parameters must be on a separate line
  - On D_to_A there can be variable numbers of arguments
- Arpad: The rules are spelled out
- Bob: We can't build a parser against this
  - It is hard to know if each item is a number or a parameter
  - The 120 character limit becomes a problem
- Walter: That limit can be increased
  - This is not a very complex syntax
  - This should be tabled for now
- Arpad: This is the first introduction of this change, tabling would be premature
- James: The logic needs to be more clear
- Radek: We might not want the file name before the parameters if it is "this file"
- Bob: Parameters should be in a separate file
- Radek: We might not want to allow referencing other IBIS files
- Walter: EBD has a file mapping section
- Arpad: Please send any suggested changes to this by email before next week

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Next meeting: 24 Apr 2012 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
